#  >  > Non Asia Travel Forums >  >  > Australia & New Zealand Travel Forum >  >  A perfect storm??

## JoGeAr

On Sunday 16/11/08 a major storm hit the north-western suburbs of Brisbane. We live in The Gap which was the epicentre of the storm. 200km/hr winds, torrential rain and hail smashed us for just over 30 minutes at around 5pm. 

I would have posted this earlier, but we've only just had power restored.

Unlike many other houses in the area, ours didn't sustain any structural damage except for the back fence being pushed over by the flowing water and the front gate being ripped right off. We still haven't found it !!









 


However, we had water flowing through the house. Everything was soggy with mud. We had to tear up and throw away the carpet and looks as though a lot of furniture will follow. Dave's big-screen projection TV is fucked. Our washing machine and the fridge in the garage are as well. 






Our party place, the courtyard, is totally fucked. The water was so strong it knocked over the beer fridge.





And the pool is now a swamp. The hail/wind shredded my wife's papaya trees !!





My poor little car was almost totally under water and I haven't been able to start it since. I had to bail out the interior and it now stinks.



You can see how high the water was from the lounge room door.



...and Dave's bedroom door.



...and the garage door.





So, how was your weekend?

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## klongmaster

sad story...amazing the power of nature once she gets her dander up...
and knocking over the beer fridge is just not cricket...

it will take some to get the smell out of everything...hope you were well insured...

needless to say my weekend was better than yours...

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## dirtydog

Sunday was a bit nippy here as well, I had to close the door at 4am as it was so cold  :Smile: 

Although this sort of stuff shouldn't be allowed to happen to red cars  :Sad:

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## TizMe

The house can be cleaned and repaired. As long as the family is safe then the rest doesn't really matter.

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## Marmite the Dog

> The water was so strong it knocked over the beer fridge.


Fuck! Should I cancel my trip?!  :Confused:

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## daveboy

Sad to see what a mess its made of your place hope you all get back to normal soon.

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## watterinja

Amazing pics. Glad you & yours are safe.

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## davearn

Was not one of my better days... Lost my three favourite things inthe world in about 45 mins. My TV (as previously mentioned), my beer fridge and computer. Everything is liveable but still taking stock of what the fuck happened. Probably the best thing to come out of all of this was seeing everyone in my street working their arses off trying to clear the street of trees and stuff. It didn't matter whose place you were at, whether you knew them or not didn't matter, you just started helping.

Kinda renewed my faith in human spirit. My biggest worry, now, is my dog. He has to be locked in the garage coz I ain't got no fucking fence and he likes to bite strangers.

But, she'll be right in a day or two. 

And Marmers, I think things will be fine by the time April comes around. 5 months should be enough time to get things together !!

And no, no insurance...

And yes, everyone is ok. Just lost some things that can eventually be replaced with shiny new ones so all isn't too bad.

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## jizzybloke

Best of luck on the clean up and getting back to normal!

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## peterpan

Looks bloody terrible Jo, those shredded Papaya trees tell the story.
 My Mum lives down the road a bit at Main beach, haven't heard from her since the storm, I doubt shes been flooded out tho, as she lives about 30 floors up.

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## kingwilly

> Was not one of my better days... Lost my three favourite things inthe world in about 45 mins. My TV (as previously mentioned), my beer fridge and computer. Everything is liveable but still taking stock of what the fuck happened. Probably the best thing to come out of all of this was seeing everyone in my street working their arses off trying to clear the street of trees and stuff. It didn't matter whose place you were at, whether you knew them or not didn't matter, you just started helping.
> 
> Kinda renewed my faith in human spirit. My biggest worry, now, is my dog. He has to be locked in the garage coz I ain't got no fucking fence and he likes to bite strangers.
> 
> But, she'll be right in a day or two. 
> 
> And Marmers, I think things will be fine by the time April comes around. 5 months should be enough time to get things together !!
> 
> And no, no insurance...
> ...


holy crap.,
\
\bad luck mate. 

but also good its only material things that you lost and that you are ok.

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## JoGeAr

^^ Your Mum should be okay PP as the storm was very localised. Basically started in The Gap and moved north through Keperra and Albany Creek, BUT they say we could see more of these this Summer. :Sad: 

Growing up in North Queensland, I saw my share of cyclones over the years, but the storm on Sunday was as bad as any I have ever seen. 

One of the worst things about it was that because of the hail the floodwaters were fucking freezing !! My feet started to go numb after a couple of minutes standing in it.  

The whole place has been a hive of activity since Sunday with S.E.S. volunteers from all over Queensland and N.S.W., as well as the Army being mobilised for the cleanup. 

As I said in the OP, we fared a lot better than some in the area. As my car is now dead, we were on a bus yesterday to do some shopping and in one section of Keperra almost every second house has roof damage. The Gap is renowned for its abundance of trees and a lot of these attiributed to the damage. The ridgeline on the hill behind us used to be bushy and green, now it is just bare sticks. A sad sight.

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## peterpan

It regenerates quickly tho, I had a place in the Dandynongs that got hit with the big fires 20 odd yrs ago, by the next year apart from scorch marks on the big trees hardly evidence that  a devastating fire had been thru there.

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## Wayne Kerr

Was wondering how you boys got on. Is that a Boags premo bottle I can see still standing? Bloody good drop that one  :Smile: .

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## Cujo

> The whole place has been a hive of activity since Sunday with S.E.S. volunteers from all over Queensland and N.S.W., as well as the Army being mobilised for the cleanup


Cujo tells me that's one of the things he loves about Oz, any natural disaster and people come from all over the country to pitch in and help.
 About 20 years ago Cujo was on the east side of Brisbane and noticed a major storm brewing in the west in the afternoon, huge GREEN clouds. By the time he got home to Clayfield, about 5.30, the place was a disaster zone, the storm had wreaked a trail of destruction. roofs off, trees down, the old chemist shop had been toppled and hail the size of baseballs had torn holes through roofs and awnings . Every window facing east was smashed. The wind was so strong these huge hailstones were being driven verticaly. For years the evidence was visible in the form of hail damaged cars. (I suppose some people didn't have insurance).

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## Marmite the Dog

> And Marmers, I think things will be fine by the time April comes around. 5 months should be enough time to get things together !!


Jolly good.




> Dandynongs


You made that name up, didn't you?

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## davearn

> Was wondering how you boys got on. Is that a Boags premo bottle I can see still standing? Bloody good drop that one .


Well spotted mate. Bugger all else survived. The water even ripped up 5 kg pavers and dragged them out into the street.

Wow, what a sight....

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## JoGeAr

> About 20 years ago Cujo was on the east side of Brisbane and noticed a major storm brewing in the west in the afternoon, huge GREEN clouds. By the time he got home to Clayfield, about 5.30, the place was a disaster zone, the storm had wreaked a trail of destruction. roofs off, trees down, the old chemist shop had been toppled and hail the size of baseballs had torn holes through roofs and awnings . Every window facing east was smashed. The wind was so strong these huge hailstones were being driven verticaly. For years the evidence was visible in the form of hail damaged cars. (I suppose some people didn't have insurance).


I think I was there for that one. I was working at the airport at the time and I remember standing with other staff watching the thing come over. An awesome sight. A mate of mine was driving at the time and parked under a tree to avoid the hail and the tree fell on his car !!

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## nedwalk

g,day fellas,  well i got your pm joe, sorry to see the damage we were on the outer here, furtunately i dropped 3 big bastard gums on the monday near the new house, i could just see em smashing through the new roof now they look smashing ..on the ground, and no bloody insurance !! c,mon fellas get it together! i gotta say the storm woke me up from me drunken slumber, she was a beauty! let me know when you start scroungeing for stuff and i,ll see what i can do! looks like a new beer fridge is first of order, and then how are the young fellas toys? at least you can go to the pub to watch a bit of tv  :Smile: , see some good out of the bad!...dave whats going on with your phone? give me a call! ok fellas stay safe in this stormy season and let me know if your missus needs any new herbs!

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## davearn

Well the good news is the TV survived.

I got my ugly head on the local news yesterday, had a reporter and cameraman pull up outside while I was throwing everything out and did a story on it.

All in all, wasn't too bad. Most things survived, though yet to try the beer fridge, so coulda been worse.

The car is still very sick so we will see how that goes....

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## Nawty

Happened again yesterdy did'nt it ?

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## nedwalk

> Well the good news is the TV survived.


hooraY :party43: 






> try the beer fridge


 :Sad:  good luck mate!!

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## JoGeAr

> Happened again yesterdy did'nt it ?


Fortunately, yesterday's predicted nasty didn't eventuate. Has been a bit windy today but nowhere near the 100km/hr they said it would be.

But two in one week is more than enough. Again, fortunately, Thursday's storm didn't hammer us the way Sunday's did. Other areas copped it though.

Today's paper was saying that we can expect a lot more similar storms this summer.  :Sad:

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## dirtydog

Have to buy a different colored car then.

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## spliff

Sucks...at least ur ok, the other shit u can replace. Did u have insurance?

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## JoGeAr

> Have to buy a different colored car then.



Still trying to resurrect the old one !!

Had it running for a while yesterday.  :Smile:  :Sad:

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## JoGeAr

> Did u have insurance?



The bad news is no.

The good news is that the damage is less than we originally thought. A couple of major items took a few days to dry out and they seem to be running again. 

But as we're cleaning our way through the house there are more things being found water-damaged. Mrs A found a few photo albums today which are now bricks. :Sad:

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## JoGeAr

Oh, yeah......and thanks for all the sympathy greens.  :Smile:

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## nedwalk

good to see you blokes are on the up, the area certainly got smashed and i think a few  here will realise how bad it was when you put that video , sorry did,nt get to call on sunday fellas my missus misbehaved herself :Smile:  and was feeling more than a little crook , always puts a smile on my face that does :Smile:  , good luck with the on going cleanup and i hope corvettelover will fix ya little red car

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