Cyclone Alfred has finally gone away and it is such a relief. There was so much misinformation given to us over the this time and I feel it caused a fair bit of stress not only me but many folk in Ipswich.

We were given a flood map that showed my house and many others in the affected area and so the stress goes through the roof.

That map then disappears and the media tell us that this could be quite the event and residents need to prepare. I moved a lot of things from the shed up to the house just to be on the safe side.

We are not seeing much rain and yet the messaging persists. Then on Sunday morning around 2am the rains come and it’s battering down. At 7am I go with a neighbour for a drive to look at the river and the creeks and there’s not much to tell.

We then get an evacuation order by SMS which is not good and more people are thinking “What the Fuck!” What are they not telling us?

Shortly afterwards a new flood map appears and the prediction is for a river level some 8m below the initial estimate, we want to believe this but don’t.

So another sleepless night waiting for the worst and I was so relieved when I got up on Monday to find no sign of water. The river had peaked at 4am below the revised level of the previous day.

Information is key. Too much information is confusing. Making shit up because you don’t know is just wrong. We are told to listen to the local authorities in a crisis like this, but when the information does not marry with what we see on the ground it’s downright dangerous.