Floods

For weeks, many communities on our state have been suffering from the effects of flooding.  We have had more rain than I can ever remember, a true answer to prayer for our drought-stricken land, but as often happens, when it rains, it pours.  Literally.

Today it was our town's turn to see the floods.  Rain came heavily, quickly, onto ground that was too soaked from the last two months of rain and couldn't take any more.  But the worst was not the Venice-like canal at the side of our house ...

... which had come from the forest behind, tore through my gardens washing away soil and mulch and I-don't-know-which-plants ...

 ... causing a huge back-up of water to well up at our side gate (where is the rest of our retaining wall?) ...

... and come a scary few inches from flooding our house (that's the top step there) ...

... and continue through our side gate, racing through my front gardens dragging soil and mulch onto the front lawn ...

... creating white water rapids down my little garden path ...

...oh no, that wasn't the worst of it.

The worst was what happened downtown.  Mr de Elba took some breathtaking footage from his window at work of one of a few local creeks, growing from a river 100 times its usual trickle, to a torrent swollen beyond all recognition.  Here is his photo of the back of the bus station where I picked up Emily Sue when she came to visit.  We're supposed to be looking at two roads divided by parkland.

This is a carpark where I parked that day.  Of the line of cars parked there, half were swept away one by one (Mr de Elba videoed all this!) and the other half were smashed up against each other at one end of the carpark.

And after the waters began to recede, this is what confronted the people who were able to locate their cars (many couldn't).

If that blows you away, you should see the footage of half-sunken cars with white water splashing around inside the closed windows, only to slightly loosen their grip on the road, shift a little, and then break free to sail apparently peacefully downstream.  One car was seen on the footage to smash into a footbridge and then disappear as it became sucked underneath the bridge, only to reappear bobbing up and down on the other side before being washed away.

However in lower-lying communities around us, whole houses are under water.  In many towns, the floods haven't peaked yet, and there is a general feeling of more hardship to come.