High and Dry

Much of the city of Brisbane is located on and around the banks of the Brisbane River. This week, that river has flooded, causing absolute devastation to low-lying areas. Our last experience of this kind of water level as a city was in 1974, when the streets looked like this:

Thankfully, Tom, Daniel, Allie and I are safe and dry, and our little suburb of Greenslopes has been spared any inundation, so our house remains undisturbed, perched on its timber stacks.

I have compiled a little album of the various pictures that my friends have taken across the city of the flood-affected areas.

A view of the city and the extra-wide river. The white structure at the bottom used to be in a park alongside the river, under the Kangaroo Point Cliffs

A local pub at Toowong, prepared with sheets of plastic and sandbags

The Centenary Highway

What used to be grass in Suncorp Stadium

These two would remember the 1974 floods vividly.

No more takeaway from Red Rooster

No buses available, but canoe anyone?

No Maccas either, at Milton

River Boardwalk at New Farm

Entrance to the Ipswich Motorway

A pontoon being swept down the river

The Centenary Highway again

A round-about, completely submerged in Taringa

Many local businesses have been severely affected

A supermarket carpark

I used to travel along this road all the time to get to and from our last house

What used to be a walking path along Coronation Drive, next to the river

Apparently there used to be a park at the bottom of these steps

A two-storey house - can't see the first storey

The typical Aussie backyard, now a lake

A stormwater drain, completely full. Nowhere for the water to go but up

What used to be a lovely residential street

A family surveys the damage

A State Emergency Service rescue boat

This service station is underwater

The cleanup starts. You can see where the water level came to by the mud on the road