Saturday, January 15, 2011

Survivor - Karana Downs

With power restored last night (8pm) - life returned to normal after a week in which we had been cut off from the outside world. No electricity, no phone, no food, no petrol, and cars packed to the roof ready for evacuation. The Mt Crosby weir was drowned under 26 metres of flood waters - Colleges Crossing continued to the cut - and the only road east to Brisbane was also under water.
The authorities finally realised that there were people living in the exotic far-flung suburbs of Karana Downs, Mt Crosby and Bellbowrie, late Thursday afternoon - despite the fact that these areas were the first to be inundated by the huge flood. By the way - there's about 25,000 people living in this area. A lot to lose in disaster planning.

The Brisbane River level at Mt Crosby today is still running at near 17 metres.
The river at Colleges Crossing is still raging on a wide front. The Navy is running emergency boats across the water from Karana Downs to the Chuwar side.


The above picture is taken from the Karana Downs side of the road leading to the bridge across Colleges Crossing. Remember what it looked like - it has been underwater for the best part of three months.

The devastation of Colleges Crossing looks complete. There were reports that the iconic fig tree at the cafe had been uprooted. Observing the scene from the Karana Downs side yesterday there was nothing to see but a sea of water. What could be seen was the awnings that surrounded the cafe laying crumpled up against the road up the hill. The peak flood level reached halfway up the hill.
If the tree and awnings have been swept away, it is fair to assume that the entire deck that the cafe was on has been devastated.


The above photo is of what used to be the Colleges Crossing park.

Seqwater yesterday increased the releases from Wivenhoe dam to 301,000 megalitres - so the flooding through the area will continue for sometime. It will take a while the the waters to subside - so that the full extent of the damage to the park can be assessed.
But, it would be fair to say that the cafe will be closed for a long time.
Today, it starting raining, and the cycle starts over again - there are cyclones dawdling around off the coast.

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