The threat of more flooding is very real. The rain has been battering down for days. I used to enjoy the sound of rain on the tin roof before I got flooded in 2011; the waters came up and over the floor boards on the second story of the house. In February of this year they had what they called a “Rain Bomb” which hung around for days and caused major flooding throughout the east coast. It was a very worrying time and brought back the fears and anxieties of 2011. Will my home be flooded once more?

You are completely helpless when this happens. There is nothing you can do to prevent the waters from reaching your home, you just have to sit and wait. Waiting is difficult and stressful. At what point do you begin to prepare and move your things to higher ground? Does it matter? The river level is currently sitting at around 10m, 16m is where it will begin to affect my garden and shed and then it will be around 17.5m or so before it would enter the bottom half of the house at which point I should be long gone.

This is the second time within 3 months that there has been a threat of flooding. Last time I spent a whole day moving the contents of my shed to higher ground before I went to stay with friends. On that occasion the water came through the shed and there was minimal damage, but the stress and fatigue it introduces is substantial. I don’t want to have to live like this for years to come.

I come from Scotland where the rain is part of life, in my 24 years living in our house in Corseford we nearly got flooded once. We had had days of rain and one of the burns up in Spateston flooded and the water just flowed down over the Beith Road, it also flooded the underpass. The houses across from us in the Cul De Sac got water through their houses but we were lucky because it stopped at the lip of the front door. Us kids thought it was great because we were out paddling and having water fights, it was a novelty for us at least. The burn that was responsible for the flooding was worked and flood mitigation was done and it never flooded again. I don’t know what the council has in store for our community, but they need to begin flood mitigation works and look to the future because this is going to be a constant threat hanging over our heads.

I can’t sell my house and buy another and stay in the area because I just don’t have the money, the only option I may have is to move to another area. I don’t really want to move, I like my house and I have put a lot of work into it over the years and I have spent close to $30,000 on it since I returned two years ago. All that work, time and effort could literally be washed away in a heartbeat and that would be hard to take. I’m insured of course but the energy and time I have put into my home will all be for nothing and I don’t know if I have the energy to rebuild. I’m not alone in this of course because there are thousands of homes currently at threat. Some communities have already been told to move to higher ground.

The rain is predicted to continue today with falls of over 100mm and it then should ease tomorrow and over the coming days, which if it comes to pass, then I should be ok. But the stress of all of this is simmering under the surface. The one unknown quantity in all of this is how much water will be released from the Wivenhoe dam; this can cause major destruction and cause the river levels to increase rapidly. Wivenhoe was designed to be a safety valve; a sump to hold the water from the Somerset dam and to control the flows being put into the rivers but their track record is not good. An 11 year court case against them, suing them for flood damage to houses in 2011, dragged out for 11 years only to have the decision go in favour of the government body which is SEQ Water. The government after all is responsible for development, for infrastructure to build a better society but corruption over many years has only lined the pockets of those in power which is no different of course to the rest of the world. The government rarely loses.

On Facebook this morning it gave me a reminder that 6 years ago it was 2.4C in the morning and dry, this is how it should be at this time of the year. Today is currently 21C and extremely wet. Climate change or is it an anomaly? Well I know that the weather patterns have certainly changed in the last 18 years that I have lived here. When I moved here there were drought conditions and water restrictions for many years. I got a water tank for the garden which is very rarely empty anymore. There is more rain and it’s warmer. I have always enjoyed the winters in Queensland because they are sunny and dry but that’s not been the case in the last two years that I have been back.

So hopefully this time all will be well but I’m not looking forward to the next time or the time after that so I think I will need to find a new place to call home.