January 28, 2011
Documenting the damage
By boat: Versatile admin officer Nat lends a hand picking with winery owner David Blacket.
What a hot past few days! It was almost a typical summer's Australia Day - sweltering hot, dry and wishing somehow the air-con would 'go better'.
Except our shed crew were busy plucking the individual grapes off the stem ready for our jam.
Unfortunately, the stems don't break down in the cooking process, and there's no other way to separate the two, apart from sitting in the shed with the fan going, plucking the grapes off one by one.
Thursday saw the day being spent picking the rest of the other white wine grapes, with plenty of water still down in the vines.
Which bring us to Friday - potentially the best day of the week. It's the first day in about two weeks that the water was too low for a boat and almost too high for the ute.
The ute's a bit of a die-hard beast, so set with a can of spray for the spark plugs and a big ego, we've been taking it back and forward across the floodwater with workers for the day and parcels of wine to post.
It's conked out a few times in the middle of thigh-high floodwater - pretty hair-raising!
It's okay when farm manager Trev is with you but stopping in the middle of nowhere isn't exactly a thrill with just two girls and a stack of parcels.
It got us to the Post Office fine but stopped twice on the way back. Perhaps it was weighed down from the two mini-mudcakes we ate whilst in town?
David wanted me to photographically document the damage. A quick whizz around on the back of the bike today revealed the extent of structural damage to trellises and the vine losses.
We've lost all our baby shiraz and cabernet vines to the floodwater.
They simply don't have the root structure to survive such intensive and extended flooding.
January 27, 2011
One month on in Theodore
This update comes from Theodore schoolteacher Anne Chater and her husband Bruce, a doctor. Their home and surgery went under water in the floods.
Damage: The roads around Theodore still need some work.
It is now a month since the mighty Dawson and all her allied tributaries decided to invade Theodore.
As battles go, we were outflanked and caught somewhat off guard with the intensity and height of the attack. However, we did have our contingencies in place and in true ANZAC tradition we had a 100 per cent successful retreat, as did the soldiers leaving Gallipoli.
The last month is a bit of a blur - not because of any psychological naval-gazing but because I have been so bloody busy.
Whilst the finer points of cleaning will keep us occupied for weeks to come, I'd say most of the big items have been collected from the street, with the skips making their last run on Friday.
All things considered, the town is looking okay with the children back at school and businesses open.
Open for business: This sign outside a local shop sums up the feeling in town.
There will be some tough financial months ahead for the small businesspeople but I have faith in the locals supporting local business and can only hope that state and Commonwealth funding grants value the people of Theodore enough to have a 100 per cent success rate for those who have chosen to make applications.
Whilst the town has given itself a good shake like a shaggy, wet dog and therefore looks a little dishevelled, spare a thought for our farmers.
Hard-hit: Farmers have a long road ahead to recovery.
The devastation of paddocks shocked me. Water wheels torn out of cement culverts, canals and levy banks shattered like a child kicking in the mote of a sandcastle, fertile topsoil gone to reveal the gibber stones of a bygone geological era, a hole so deep in a paddock that a really big pump (technical description) and generator have taken three days of continuous pumping and the hole is not yet dry. I cannot even begin to imagine how this hole can ever be filled in and made part of the paddock again.
Walking out into the paddock, I broke through the dry crust only to bog to my ankles in spewy mud. (I actually gave myself a bit of a fright there for a second hoping I hadn't found a sinkhole or quicksand. Needless to say I jumped pretty quickly, forgetting what my mother told me about not using the word shit).
Back on track, it strikes me that the reshaped landscape has features not unlike the hoodoos of Drumheller in Alberta, Canada - merging into the gibber deserts of Central Australia before converting back into agricultural land.
Driving around the district you will see fencelines hanging with debris; grass hangs drying as if waiting to be used as thatching. Farmers will take months to repair holes in paddocks, washed-away and knocked-down fences, unpassable roads and vanished crossings. Further downstream hundreds of head of cattle were drowned and washed away.
Thank you to everyone who has spared us a thought, a dollar or has put their back into helping us clean and sort. Your generosity has been overwhelming and it is somewhat humbling.
Overall the people of Theodore and district will march on, undoubtedly with some hiccoughs and differences in opinion at times, and rebuild to be even better than we were before.
Some of the exciting events that suggest things are gradually getting back to normal include:
- a bakery that opened just nine days before the flood is back in business and baking bread, with some assistance from a Brisbane baker who has come to lend a hand despite not know the owner of the bakery, Sharyn See.
- the water is once again A-OK - which is just as well as I kept on forgetting that I wasn't supposed to be drinking the tap water.
- just about all 111 dogs that were evacuated from Theodore to Biloela and Moura have been returned to their owners. This count does not include the dogs that were looked after on surrounding farms and the few that wandered into the hotel, which the police fed.
- the mail is getting through now and I've even received a Christmas parcel.
- Queensland Railway put on a big Community BBQ for us and donated four gas BBQs to go to the Pony Club, Junior Rugby League, Theodore P&C and HACC. As well they have paid for 16 new split-system air conditioners for the retirement village, as well as providing many small appliances. Thank you so very much for the help you gave to so many people. Next time you go past a coal train spare a thought for the drivers as they were probably the men who helped clean up Theodore.
- the surgery and house are gutted and most things have been basically sorted into piles. Now I can get on and dedicate a few days to the office and surgery bookwork, which crashes in daily, disaster or not.
the medical practice is working well from within the inner sanctum of the hospital. We are eagerly awaiting Queensland Health to sign the document needed to site the demountable, on loan from Anglo Coal, on the hospital grounds.
We were also cheered by a visit from Patrick McGorry, 2010 Australian of the Year, and Kate Leahy, who composed and sings The Life Raft. They visited as part of Cotton Australia's efforts to help our rural community. The cotton growers of Theodore are doing it tough having lost two crops to floodwaters in the one year.
As we were somewhat distracted over Christmas and new year, it has been decided to have a belated Christmas and new year street party on February 25.
Oh, and one small side note on something I keep hearing people say about Queensland's floods:
"It's surreal!"
"It's surreal!"
"It's surreal!"
Like bloody hell. There's nothing too dream-like about a flood sneaking its way over the gutter, up the drive and into your house or business. I don't need to be hit over the head by a 4X2 to know a flood when I see one.
I can think of lots of other words to describe our recent flood, such as unusual, abnormal, freakish, amazing, atypical, astonishing, astounding, remarkable, destructive, wasteful, and unpredictable - but it was far from surreal.
January 25, 2011
First floods, now an earthquake
This update comes from Dana Gluzde, who works at a winery at St George in south-western Queensland, which was severely affected by the Queensland floods.
Trusty: A barge is required to start moving stock.
January 25: It's been an eventful week so far and we're less than halfway through...
The river here at St George peaked again at 12.5 metres on Sunday and it's still hanging about a few centimetres off the peak days later, which was predicted.
That means we're still boating to work. Boating to work was exciting the first few times but three weeks on and it has lost its thrill!
To add to our eventful past month (because yes, this has been going on for a month now) we had an earthquake here on Monday. Yeah, an earthquake. It measured 3.6 on the Richter scale at 5.40am on Monday between Dirranbandi and St George.
I didn't feel anything personally but there have been some reports of a shaking feeling. I'm not sure what's next - a volcano??
We picked the first of our wine grapes - chardonnay, soon followed by the white muscats.
Picking was finished on Saturday and the fruit was transported away from the vineyard using the trusty barge. Again, two pallets at a time made it an arduous process, but on the up side, it was the largest chardonnay crop we've harvested.
So we thought we'd better celebrate the chardy crop and our flood recovery process with a new label for the vintage.
An inspection on Monday revealed the sauvignon blanc is also ready to go and merlot isn't too far behind.
One catch though - they're still in water! We're hoping the water starts receding in the next few days so we can get at the grapes.
Compelling first-hand view of Chelmer flooding
The following three videos from YouTube user njulier provide a compelling picture of the early stages of the recovery process after waist-height flooding hit his unit at Chelmer in Brisbane's west.
'Small steps' forward in Grantham
ABC News reporter Kirrin McKechnie checks in on progress in flood-devastated Grantham in the Lockyer Valley, where survivors of Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires are among those lending a hand.
'It's just stuff'
On The Drum, Jen Brennan, the ABC's local radio manager in Queensland, writes about losing many of her possessions in the flood and the long road back to normal life:
"It's just stuff. I don't know how many times I have heard those words come from my mouth over the past few days. Days that are fast blurring into a melange of murky, adrenaline-soaked images as if I'm walking through a movie starring me as me."
January 24, 2011
Thinking positive
The ABC's Francene Norton reports keeping morale high among flood victims is looming as a challenge.
Top tips for the flood clean-up
This update comes from Theodore schoolteacher Anne Chater and her husband Bruce, a doctor. Their home and surgery went under water in the floods.
Work underway: Removing gyprock from the walls is a messy business.
January 13 to January 15: I thought it about time to try and get back into doing routine things so I hopped on my "deadly treadly" push bike (once I found my bike helmet) and rode down town to do my jobs. Living in a small town, riding my bike with a backpack to do the mail and shopping is just as quick as using the car. Not as many people to waved today but that was okay it was still good to be doing something normal.
On the way home, I rode down Partridge Drive with Castle Creek as its parallel companion. Castle Creek is the creek that caused the flash flooding which was the ruination of us. Would you believe that mongrel creek had the audacity to be barely flowing with a "Who me? Oh, come now!" expression. I felt quite cross to know this "creek" has had its hissy fit and left us with the consequences.
The life of a rural doctor is never dull. That's why we are still here after 30 years. Four Theodore people became really sick and needed hospitalising in Moura as Theodore hospital has not yet reopened. The air-conditioning in the kitchen needs repairing before cooking for inpatients can resume. These patients were in fact critically ill from some bizarre bacteria possibly contracted from the floodwater/mud. As a result Bruce spent a night with his patients in the Moura Hospital particularly after one had a cardiac arrest which required RFDS retrieval.
Up and running: The washing machine is working again.
Exciting news - the hot water unit was fixed today. Hot showers tonight. No more boiling the jug for a bird bath. Even walking the Himalayas recently I had a hot shower!
More exciting news - I now have a refrigerator and a washing machine. Thank you to Margery and deBurg Joyce for not only helping us for the last five days to gut the surgery and house but for also bringing into town these two important items. The machine had a small leak due to the pump seal perishing but Bruce and Margery soon fixed that.
At night Theodore is quiet as some people are still not back into their homes as they await building inspectors to give the okay to move back in. A few crickets and the odd pobblebonk (frog) punctuate the night with commas and exclamation marks.
The birds are still here and we have a Common Koel or Storm Bird that wakes us up most mornings (I wish he would change his tune) and I've seen several red tailed cockatoos - my all time favourite bird. The call of the "gurney bird" has been quite obvious too as SES crews and other helpers pressure wash driveways and under houses.
Doctor's not in: The current state of Bruce's consulting room.
Here are my tips for cleaning up after a flood:
- Take all damaged items onto street (not footpath)
- Try to create a clean spot as soon as possible to place things that can be saved. You may have to clean an area such as a driveway or use large tarps on the lawn.
- Lots of sweeping and squeegee-ing
-The grass will be boggy and walking across lawns will churn them up like a truck down a dirt road.
- Emptying sandbags onto grass will help to soak up some of the bogginess and at least give you a path to the street or clothes line. Our cats were also appreciative of having somewhere to scratch, not liking to get their paws muddy.
- Try to work on one room at a time.
- Once rooms are bare, lift carpets, vinyl and remove gyprock. If gyprock is not fully damaged only remove to a height of about 1.2m as the plasterers can come in and re-sheet.
- If you can, pull gyprock onto a dropsheet, otherwise your floors will look like Doctor Who has gone on a rampage flinging plaster of Paris all over the floors.
- Once gyprock is removed, scrape mud off frames and allow to dry. Mud is insidious and will find every nook and cranny it can to settle.
- Somewhere in all of this ring your insurance company and lodge a claim. Even if you don't have flood cover you can still lodge a claim. You never know your luck.
- Take photos of the flood damage. If nothing else it might be good for your kids to remember where the floodwaters came so they don't build or buy in the same spot.
- Don't be embarrassed if your pile is the biggest in the street. It's just all the swollen doors, cupboards and gyprock. It is definitely not the fact that you have lived in the same house for 30 years. (New Year's Resolution - Live a minimalist lifestyle.)
- Manage the helpers and volunteers so special things are not lost in the throw-out pile.
- No job is too small. They all have to be done eventually.
- Some jobs can be done away from your house; for example the washing of clothes, curtains.
- Leave books and papers to dry completely before trying to open. If the paper/books are to the mache stage - this might not work.
- Separate photos as soon as you can - preferably while they are wet.
- Ring tradesmen and book in for your work. This is particularly important if you need an electrical contractor to sign Form A for the power to be reconnected by your electricity provider.
Hopefully these few tips will get you started. You'll all be experts by the time you finish your clean-up. With lots of help and several days you'll see the difference. Good Luck!
The grapes of wrath
This update comes from Dana Gluzde, who works at a winery at St George in south-western Queensland, which was severely affected by the Queensland floods.
On the water: Inspecting the damage in the field.
January 6: Things are pretty serious now. There's so much information - official and unofficial - floating around (literally) that it's hard to know exactly what the peak is going to be, making it hard to know if we should lift everything in the office and make plans for transport for the workers/grapes/etc.
The table grapes are still in the throws of being picked but it's hard to know how much more we're able to save.
At the moment, we have around 30 pallets of grapes picked and just sitting in the coldroom, which desperately need to get to market. We've had to apply sulphur pads and chill the coldroom right down to help preserve the grapes. The 1.5km road leading to our property is completely inundated with around 1.5m water.
We've finally had some light at the end of the tunnel. Council got on to a cotton farmer who has a barge he's willing to loan us to float our grapes across on. David's going to check it out tonight.
On the move: Moving some of the stock was a large endeavour.
January 7: The barge was a goer, so it was delivered in the morning and we've used it all afternoon to fill a semi-trailer (about 12 pallets) with the grapes. As result, the media has just been a frenzy today.
It's a time consuming process shifting the grapes and we're hoping they don't get too hot in the process or they get downgraded. It requires two people at the shed end to load the grapes on the trailer, one of whom also doubles as the forklift driver 1.5km down the road at the waters edge. Plus three guys on the pontoon to stabilise and spin the pontoon around, and a forklift driver on the other side (truck end) to unload.
The war against this flood hasn't been won yet, but with the pontoon working out, this is strike one in our favour.
The water is definitely heading towards the peak today.
January 8: We spent the morning ferrying the remainder of the pallets - about 22 of them - across on the barge. We finally finished loading & transporting by 12. We rewarded ourselves with a glass of wine and some cheese on the pontoon. Some MPs - Howard Hobbs, JP Langbroek etc. joined us on the pontoon for a little celebration. We floated them to our front gate for some photo opportunities and proceeded to have a little grape fight with a canoeist.
January 9: Not much happened today, had a few media guests out getting ready for the telethon,
but that was about it. It's a day off for the workers.
January 10: Today we (Trevor the farm manager; David, the vineyard owner; and me, the marketing
manager) floated around the wine grapes to fully check what's happening in our bottom block. It's the first chance we've had to really get down there to investigate.
Our wine block is among the lowest land on the vineyard and has a significant slope.
At the bottom part of the slope, the grapes are so much under water that there are only trellis tops sticking out in some instances, and at the top of the block where it's less affected, there are grapes dangling just above the water.
We discussed the likelihood of any of this being salvageable and don't like our chances. It looks like we won't really have a wine vintage this year. Lucky for great supplies in years past that will carry us through!
More rain on the way - just what we always wanted!
January 11: It's dropped about six inches since the peak.
We were shocked to hear the news of the devastating flash flooding in Toowoomba etc. and the loss of not just houses, but lives. Luckily for us, no-one has been as severely affected here.
Condamine has also flooded and residents were evacuated again. That water will come down to us, probably by the weekend. We're hoping in the meantime that the waters currently here will drop enough so that the next peak doesn't go past around 13 metres, but we're waiting for official news.
As the waters slowly recede, it's an awful smelly mess. We all complain bitterly about the stench every time we go near the water's edge.
And the sandflies! They're another story completely. It's almost unbearable to be outside and I feel greatly for our paddock workers who today have just started dropping fruit. We're dropping all fruit from our table grapes that weren't suitable to be picked so we can prevent the disease from infecting next year's crop and also to help aid the vine in the recovery process.
There was also a town meeting on flood recovery. I love it how someone asked: Recovery? Isn't there another peak coming? It does seem strange to contemplate recovery when we're actually in the middle of another flood!
Falling levels: The floodwaters have started to fall - for now.
January 12: On our boat ride to work today we can see the water has had a significant drop, about half a metre. Exciting news! Half a metre is such a lot of water, and we were thinking that there almost isn't enough water - enough water to drive the boat all the way up to the road at least.
We have several odd high spots of ground around the vineyard and today we can see the tiniest patch of grass, or what was grass but is now covered in mud. We should enjoy the view of that - looks like it'll be submerged again by the weekend. We're bracing for additional flooding.
Unfortunately the big cloud hanging above our heads is a literal one - we've had a bit of rain today. That means getting wet inside the boat on the way home!
There is also a growing concern now about losing not just fruit from this year but also possibly the vines themselves - a huge risk.
January 14: It's a strange feeling contemplating how we're going to get to work in the coming days. The water has dropped almost a metre now, which is starting to get a little too shallow for the boat. Yet it's too deep for any vehicle or tractor at this stage.
Today we're taking our mail orders to town. The postal service has been shut for a while and we're hoping the wine orders will go on Monday.
Town is restocked again - a fresh load of fruit, veg and supplies arrived yesterday. Went shopping on Wednesday and the only milk left was budget long-life milk - and only about five of those left too!
One of our major concerns is how tourism will be affected, not just here but in many of the communities affected by flood.
Tourism Queensland have already been in touch to confirm a flood recovery task force has been set up. They're already looking at marketing and publicity opportunities, which is exactly what we need.
We've offered to bring customers in by boat if they commit to buying a carton, but haven't had any takers yet!
January 22, 2011
Contributor profile: Dana Gluzde
Dana Gluzde is the marketing manager for Riversands Vineyards at St George in south-western Queensland.
She grew up in St George and has worked with the company for the past three years. She has seen the landscape in the area turn from years on end of drought to a sudden change of heavy rainfall and floods through 2010 and early 2011.
At the helm of Riversands Vineyards are owners David Blacket and his wife Alison, who have three sons - Nick, Loxlee and Jock. Riversands is a dual wine and table grape industry, whose table grapes supply the Melbourne and Sydney markets.
Starting out as a promising year for table grapes, 2010 quickly turned around in St George. Nearly double the annual rainfall meant disease pressure was high; a battle the grapes didn't win in every block. The combination of constant wet weather and three floods in less than 12 months meant saying goodbye to almost half the regular table grape harvest. Recovery work from the March 2010 flood wasn't completed, with more damage resulting from consecutive floods.
