House flooded, town flooded -Queensland outback Australia

FrankieP

FrankieP

O.G.
Jun 24, 2006
10,147
41
#1
Hi guys, hoping for some karma and luck wished our way.

I live in Charleville, a small town of 3000 in the Queensland outback, Australia. We're having catastrophic downpours at the moment and the town's flooding. Woke up this morning to find 3 foot of flood water pouring through our house. It's a highset house and underneath is just storage and the treadmill (which we put atop a bench yesterday thankfully), but we've been evacuated from the house and are presently staying with friends.

I'm a Paramedic out here and MrFrankie works in Local Gov't in IT and Engineering so we're both flat out all day doing rescue stuff and are very involved in it.. it's just a nightmare, half the town is under already and these people already had devastating floods in 1990 and 1997. We're lucky that hopefully our living areas upstairs will remain dry, but power, water and sewerage are off and floods are expected to still rise.

If you click the fitness files link to my training blog I made a long post there about everything that's happened for us today.. just hope that anyone I'm currently in a transaction with will know not to worry on that if I'm away for a bit, things are pretty hectic here. You can see pics on the news websites, probably one of me will be there too helping my mate evac her coffee shop!

Here's the post.. http://frankiefit.blogspot.com/2008/01/flooded-out.html

Wish us luck.

"Floating" Frankie.
 
#3
All the best to you Frankie!!!! Please stay safe.

My mum lives in Northern NSW and whilst they haven't had any flooding yet, they've had loads of rain.

BTW - are you the member that broke your leg after falling off your bike? Ow-wee!
 
#4
Hi Cal, yes that's me! Have pics now and news stories... I'll post pics and explain them.


470Wills_St_Friday.jpg

470StMarysCatholicChurch.jpg

470floodRSLClubleft.jpg

470Corones_hotel_Friday.jpg

470Cnr_Wills___Edward_St.jpg





Okay. The Shell roadhouse is on the gully edge, but the gully itself flows behind it from that angle!!! So that water is about 5m above the river bed. If you drive along the road in front of the Shell heading in the direction of the pic you go over a bridge, then the first road you get to is Edward Street. Turn left and our Ambulance Station is on the far corner of that block.

That church with the sandstone front is over the road from the Shell. The person taking that pic has turned to the right and shot that across the road, the gully proper is to the left of that pic.

THird shot is the RSL, which is on the other side of the gully one block on. The gully should be one block over from that road and past some flat land and floodway, not flowing over it's front stairs. The houses on the right of the pic and ones you can't see behind the RSL farther up that street go right up to the bridge that's one block down from the Shell place. So at the end of that road is the bridge and to the left of the pic over the road is the Ambulance Station, where MrFRankie's beloved motorbike is as the moment, hopefully still not too soggy.

Corones Hotel, famous place Heritage listed. It'll survived, it's survived everything the world could throw at it so far.

In the last pic you're looking down towards the Shell servo. The Shell is farther along on the same side of the road as photographer, you can't see that but you can see the bridge railings in front of the big green trees and before the blue building. Just before that bridge is Edward Street, turn right and you head towards Ambulance Station. Water level on Edward as you turn left into it from that intersection is above head height. My friend's place is half a block up, submerged. She's okay and in great spirits, as is everyone out here. Tough bunch, love them all!
 
#9
Had word the predicted peak for the river is 7m. If the river keeps rising the gully won't be able to drain into it and the flood will really speed up then. :cry:
 
#11
Oh no, that's terrible! Those are some devastating pictures, Frankie! I hope everything turns out ok for you and your loved ones. {{Hugs}} and keep checking in so we know you're ok!
 
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