The Torrent by Amanda Gearing

Author:Amanda Gearing
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Published: 2016-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

The aftermath

As darkness settled over the disaster zone, hundreds of people who had lost their homes – but escaped with their lives – gathered at local meeting points: schools and halls or neighbouring houses that had escaped unscathed. Local people who still had houses brought food. Power outages meant frozen food was defrosting, so it needed to be cooked and eaten because it could not be refrozen. Gas barbecues were kept busy cooking sausages and steak to feed the dozens of flood survivors in each township of the Lockyer Valley as survivors arrived cold, hungry, injured and shocked.

Dry clothes were brought by anyone who had them for the people who had no clothes except the soaked, muddy ones they wore. Blankets and mattresses came from nearby houses, so the survivors could give their children somewhere to sleep, or at least rest, on the floor, as comfortably as possible. The vision of the flood was still too fresh in their minds. Not knowing who had died and who had lived made it very difficult to sleep. Material goods, houses that had suddenly been destroyed, did not seem to matter any more. Rain still pounded on the roof. Life was what mattered now.

Many adults and children lay down that night with hearts heavy with grief – sobbing and keening with agony – for those they had seen swept away by the torrent. Some were family members, some neighbours, some friends, some strangers. Nothing would be the same. Inside the disaster zone, the few mobile phones still with battery power were shared among groups of shocked survivors who sparingly sent ‘We’re alive’ text messages to the outside world. The messages were passed around families outside the disaster area who were waiting anxiously for news.

Truck drivers used UHF radios to get messages through where no phone lines or networks were working. In the outside world, where electricity existed, families and friends tried to find out if people inside the disaster zone were alive. Others used social networking sites to try to make contact. News media did not have the capacity to broadcast enough information about the disaster. Desperate for more information, people logged onto the Queensland Police Facebook page to get news faster, and searched online missing persons’ registers. Videos were posted on YouTube and shared around, revealing that the disaster was not just centred on Toowoomba – it had extended to several townships and rural districts in the Lockyer Valley, a devastating display of the force of nature.

In each isolated township, injured and sick survivors were tended all night by volunteers with basic medical supplies – painkillers, antiseptic, borrowed prescription medications, bandages – whatever came to hand. With roads cut, communications disabled, and darkness preventing aerial evacuations, there was no possibility of getting medical help in or patients out.

During the night the flood continued relentlessly, moving both east and west of the mountains. To the west of Toowoomba it flowed towards the towns of Oakey and Dalby. To the east, the waters made

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