Andy and Michelle: Brisbane Floods

Hi from not so sunny Brisbane!

As you might have seen on the news we have a lot of rain and now flooding in Brisbane and other parts Queensland. I am happy to say that Michelle and I are not affected and that Vanessa, Gary and the kids are also out of the flood areas. While we are ok it is heartbreaking to see people that were so badly affected by the 2011 floods having to go through it all over again so soon.

It rained consistently from Thursday to Monday morning and put a real dampener on the Australia Day long weekend which has been a complete washout. Our highly anticipated camping trip to Northern New South Wales had to be cancelled due to the weather.

After spending all of Sunday inside we decided to be natural disaster tourists today and drove to Southbank to see the Brisbane River. We were relieved to find that while the river is much higher than normal there was minimal flooding. I'll be honest and say that we were a little disappointed not to see a more interesting scene! see photos below.

Michelle and I live in Kelvin Grove which is close-ish to the CBD. The area is very hilly and has a creek (Enoggera Creek) running through it which joins up to the Brisbane River. When driving (to find somewhere to buy a newspaper) I stumbled across some badly flooded streets and saw people emptying their properties of furniture, muddy carpet etc. This was sad to see but everyone was chipping in and helping their neighbours.

I have added a map of our area and added where I saw some flooding today. On the map the flooding looks close to us which it is but we live on a hill and are very sheltered even from the wind.

The Brisbane River is not expected to peak until tomorrow (Tuesday) at 11am so fingers crossed that this does not bring too much new flooding.