Photo A Day - Day 7-15 {Catch up}

I said I might end up having to post a few days in one shot because I would be away for work a lot this month. Only when I left last friday I expected to be home sunday. Not thursday. And not kept away for the reasons I was. And I never expected I would have to postpone shoots until the Blackbutt range opens back up. And I REALLY never expected to be told 6-8 weeks until it does. But I'll explain all that with the photos.

Firstly, Day 7. These are Reuben and Alex's feet. I was trying to get a good shot of the kids lazing about at Nanna and Pops in the lounge room and this was what I ended up with.

Day 8. Kelly and I shot a wedding (sneak peek to come) and I snapped this off of Kelly while she was waiting for the bride to begin walking down the aisle.

Day 9. We had cake at Nanna and Pops for Reuben's birthday. Usually I leave in the morning but I was planning to leave that day in the afternoon. Heavy rain had closed east bound traffic from Kilcoy but I was still hoping to get through west bound that afternoon. But by the afternoon Kilcoy was shut completely. We ended up staying another night. My fried's husband was going to try to get to Brisbane the following day via Crow's Nest to Toowoomba and she was going to let me know how he went to tell me whether I would be able to get home that way.

Day 10. My friend sent me a message that morning to say that her husband had left for Crow's Nest and that the Blackbutt range had had rockslides and wouldn't be open for 1-4 weeks. I began to worry about my cats who I had left at home expecting to only be away a couple of days. I fretted all day about trying to get through to Toowoomba or not and ended up deciding to go just before lunchtime. We packed the car in a rush and set off. It was pretty straight forward the whole way to Withcott. We had about 5 -10 minutes of really heavy rain and then we were stopped. For anyone who doesn't know Withcott is about 15 minutes from Toowoomba and at the bottom of the Toowoomba range. When we got out to have a look the water racing through Withcott, across the Warrego Highway and through a shop called Tomatoland was unreal. I had never seen water like this before in my life. It was a complete force unto itself. No one had any idea what had just came through Toowoomba and that what was now plowing through Withcott and carving out the earth with no regard on it's way to Helidon was nothing compared to the water that was about to barrel down the range and take out Helidon a few hours later. Everyone was still saying, "Oh, we're so close to Toowoomba." I managed to turn around and start back towards Brisbane but got stopped not even a kilometer up the road by another washout. After a few hours that subsided and we were allowed to proceed but got told we would make it no further than Helidon Bridge which was supposed to be another 4-5 hours from receding. Actually there would be a second rush of water from the Toowoomba flash flooding. We decided to pull into a motel I had seen just off the Warrego in between Withcott and Helidon and try to get a room. The water on the way didn't look like a creek or a river. It was too large. It looked like a really pissed off dam that was whipping around large trees and sometimes separating for houses and sometimes just going straight on through. Back at the room I nearly cried with relief of being somewhere dry and what I felt was safe (we were actually safe there but for the next two days I would feel fear that the water would rise suddenly and wash us all away constantly). There was no electricity but I could run a bath (slowly - no electricity meant the water gravity fed in) for the kids and ordered some dinner for them.

Day 11. This bath was what broke up the day for the kids. I ran two shallow baths each day...one in the morning and one at night. Half of us would bath in the morning and the other half at night. Reuben bathed both times. After the first night the motel ran out of food. There was still no electricity. This day a pair of mum's that were also staying there took a trip to Withcott where a man had cleaned up his IGA and was selling things (quickly - as everyone was buying) if you could pay cash for them as the eftpos didn't work. I gave them some money and they bought us some milk and cereal, biscuits and Saladas and nappies for Reuben who had an upset stomach. That night someone brought a rump in and shared it with everyone in the motel, the lady who ran it cooked up a large pot of eggs (thankfully the kitchen was on gas!) and pot after pot of hot water for tea and coffee. There was still no word on when the Toowoomba range would open and there had been a storm raging in Brisbane all day that was putting it in danger too. Places in Brisbane were being evacuated and Wivenhoe Dam was at almost twice it's capacity. The Brisbane River broke it's banks and it became obvious for us stuck at the motel in Helidon that waiting for the Toowoomba range was now our only option. The flooding in Gatton and Grantham was bad, helicopters flew overhead constantly rescuing and searching. We were cut off from everywhere by water in both directions. Everyone fretted that the water would rise and put us in danger particularly when it would rain solidly and heavily and the property next door became inundated and looked more dam than field. Our radio was out, mobile batteries were being kept barely alive with running our cars but no one wanted to waste petrol or car battery and we had no idea how long we would be stuck. As late as Wednesday morning we got told by police the Toowoomba range was closed indefinitely.

Day 12. We woke up that morning to a grey sky but no rain. By 9am we could see a little bit of blue peeking through the clouds. The below picture shows how this bit of sky really boosted the kids spirits. For two days Jess had been sitting in a chair staring into space and fingering her hair and Reuben had begun to bite his nails and I would lie beside him in bed at night and listen to him biting them. A call to the Lockyer council told me that we were cut from Withcott and that the range to Toowoomba was still closed and they had no idea when it would open. You couldn't go back to Brisbane. You couldn't get through Murphy's Creek. Stay put. Only we now had serious supplies issues. We had run out of food. Our water had been turned off and there was no more. My daughter needed an asthma puffer. I got told by the council that if we were desperate we could drive through to Gatton and get supplies from there. I decided to set out and do that. I packed the whole car first because I was now completely stressed about getting stranded somewhere else. Helicopters were out in full force today, worse than any day prior. The Grantham flooding was really really awful. The dead and missing toll for the flooding now stood at 12 dead and 76 missing. On the way to Gatton we got to really see the destruction for the first time without the rain obscuring our view. The destruction was unfathomable. Roads torn up, houses leaning, things missing where things stood two days before. Boats and unidentifiable bits of tin and iron scattered. On the road to Gatton just off the highway I saw a van and stopped to ask if it was true we could get supplies from Gatton. She said no way. If you head through you won't be allowed back as you have to pass through Grantham to get there. She gave me 2L of milk and wouldn't let me pay her for it and escorted me back to a little corner shop in Helidon that was open and doing business. They had power and let me charge my phone awhile while I ordered some hot chips (!) for the kids and bought some supplies including extras for the people back at the motel. When I got back to the motel I was taking some hot chips and fruit and yoghurt down to the other two families when I heard the father say, "Come on, get out, we're going to Toowoomba! The roads are open!" He told me that the road to Withcott had just been opened and they were letting 20 cars up at a time to Toowoomba. I already had the car packed so we jumped in and left. His wife and the other mother had been going off to Gatton for supplies too. I have no idea if they got there or if they could get back if they did. I don't know if they made it up the Toowoomba range that day. I don't even know who told him the information. But sure enough I got through Withcott and before I knew it there was a traffic control man asking me where I was headed. I told him I was hoping to get to Toowoomba and he told me "Sure, we can get you there!" Could be a bit of a wait though as we had to let cars come down also and were taking turns. No problem! A little boy on the back of his father's ute drove up and down the sides of the cars handing out water bottles to the cars waiting in queue. We were the 3rd lot of traffic to go up the range. We pulled into the motel my mother had booked the night before and the kids promptly went and turned on every light - ecstatic to have electricity.

Day 13 and 14. I didn't do any photos on these days. On day 13 I drove home from Toowoomba via Crow's Nest and made it back to our house at about 11am. We'd had a fair bit of water through our downstairs...most everything in the studio will need to be thrown out and there is major clean up to be done. Upstairs was fine although covered in mould from the walls to the furniture to the kitchen benches to the carpets. The rest of day 13 and 14 I spent with the kids beginning upstairs. We've probably got another day and a half - 2 days upstairs before we can begin downstairs but I'm thinking of getting a couple of cleaners in next week if I can to help out. It's a bit too much for pregnant me to take on on my own and while I've received so so much support and offers of help from friends and family I don't want anyone on the roads just yet. I'll get there.

Day 15. Yesterday I drove into Kingaroy to buy Jessie her birthday present - a sapphire ring - for her 13th birthday in two days. The kids got money from their grandmother for christmas and the little ones were desperate to spend it so we took a detour through Big W to the toy section. Alex bought two Toy Story Legos. He loves Lego but when he gets it the building of the Lego consists of him nagging until one of us breaks down and agrees to put it together for him while he sits beside us and offers moral support and encouragement. Yesterday Isabella got the honours.