Yesterday there was loads of rain going on up here. I stopped out to take some photos of Bulimba Creek which had totally blown it’s banks. The water was up about 12-15 feet on it’s normal height and the creek instead of being a polite 5-6m wide was effectively a fast flowing lake about 40m across the lower lying areas nearby.
High voltage powerlines and water…. just doesn’t look right.
Meadowlands Rd bridge over Bulimba Creek from the east side
Meadowlands Rd bridge over Bulimba Creek from the west side
But we’re pretty lucky here being on the south side and a relatively inner suburb. Most of the developments around here were put in by people who still remembered and were affected by the 1974 floods Brisbane had and the floodplain areas weren’t ever built out…. which many unlucky bastards on the northside can’t say unfortunately. I guess that’s one of the big problems with drought. The city is constantly expanding and developers are buying up spaces that weren’t previously residential and they’re building suburbs in stupidly low lying areas (Brookfield for example). Drought breaks… and ‘oh quelle surprise!’ Our houses are flooded, the roads rendered impassable and our cars swept away!!! 🙁 Sucks to be them.
My only drama yesterday was the driveway of my house building up with about 6-8 inches in water against our garage doors. We’ve been moving things around and gettnig ready to build and there was a pile of stuff in the way of where the water normally flows away after it starts running down the cul de sac and subsequently down our driveway. So I was out there in the pouring rain (with a dodgy umbrella that constantly blew inside out) trying to dig a channel/trench to redirect the water without any tools because if I opened the garage all that water would have flooded inside instead. So I had to try and shift a huge hardwood beam (not very successfully) and then dig the trench so it could go under the fence.
Result? The water drained away in about 20mins flat but I ended up with fucking freezing feet, sopping wet clothes and a night of very poor sleep, took me over ten minutes to just physically get out of bed (breathe… gotta remember to breathe) and hardly able to walk this morning after having done something that was absolutely unavoidable but also absolutely guaranteed to exacerbate my back pain.
But what do you do? Can’t just let the water keep rising?
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