Returning to the Mainland amid the Noise of Generators

Our experience of the 2022 Australian Floods in Queensland

This story is a follow-up to We are now living on an island and we didn’t move house!

On Monday morning the heavy rain stopped. We’ve had a few bouts of rain but not the consistent downpour.

Three hours after the rain stopped, the electricity went off. We’re prepared for this. Living in an area where flooding is an annual event, we have a generator and gas bottles for the barbecue. In the 2017 floods, we lost power for three days.

This time, they have scheduled the updated information on our power outage for Friday 9pm. What’s concerning about that is that more heavy falls are forecast for Thursday and Friday.

Flooding is across an area that stretches down the Eastern Coast from Maryborough and has now moved South towards Sydney more than 900 kilometres (560 miles).

At the height of the power outages, more than 50 000 homes were without power in my state of Queensland. At the time of writing, 32 000 are still without power. The energy authority, Energex, has staff coming from other areas to try to increase manpower to address the unprecedented number of outages in the densely populated (by Australian standards) regions.

Yesterday I managed to get “off the island” as the waters receded. I needed more gas for cooking and petrol for the generator.

The generator has been plugged into the fridge, freezer and house pump that supplies the house with rainwater. I grew up with gravity-fed rainwater and every time it floods I think about how wise my family was to choose that option!

Unbelievably the hot water system has managed to keep the water hot up to this point, but every time we have a shower or wash up we edge closer to cold showers. Lucky it’s warm!

A few hours after the electricity went off we lost our wireless internet. I could still get intermittent service on my phone but I couldn’t connect my laptop. Last night the wireless came back on and this morning I recharged my laptop using the generator, but as I type this I am watching the battery icon empty.

We are lucky. We are high and dry. We have food and a generator. My heart goes out to the many people whose homes were inundated and those who found themselves isolated without much food or access to a generator.

Really, we are suffering from inconvenience, others are suffering loss, isolation and grief.