I've learned so much from this forum, when the floods hit Brisbane earlier this year it was knowledge learned from here that stood me and my family in good stead. I thought I would post up my observations from this time, as best as I can remember them, in case some info here helps others. Its going to be long so make a nice cup of tea.

All through spring from September onwards we had a LOT of rain. Being new to Brisbane and sub tropical living I figured it was what was to be expected, but locals were telling me it was particularly wet. For two weeks over Christmas we saw no sunshine, it rained hard every day. A cyclone hit the north of the state (2,000kms north) on Christmas day, and from then the stories of flooding started.

Day by day the floods came further south, affecting town after town and dominating the headlines. The feeling in Brissie was that the Wivenhoe Dam, built since the 1974 floods, would keep Brisbane safe. I presumed the locals knew best and didn't worry. But it kept on raining and I started to feel uneasy.

On Monday the 10th something triggered me to check supplies 'just in case'. My wife thought I was being paranoid (she gently mocked me reading this forum) but I went shopping in any case. We had enough tinned / long term food for a couple of weeks, I topped up on perishables (milk bread etc) and pet food and medications. As I left the supermarket the heavens opened, I have never seen rain like it. Just walking 15 feet to the car I got soaked. I have been in storms before, even severe storms that deserve a warning, but this rainfall was to me unprecedented. I can't remember the exact figures, some areas received over 200mm a day and a lot of that fell in a 2 to 3 hour period. My swimming pool was already full, coming home with the shopping it had caused a waterfall down my front steps (a run of 12 steps to the house door) which I found physically difficult to walk against. This is the rainfall that caused the flash flood in Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley.

I remember shopkeepers quietly laughing at me as I stocked up, talking about panic buying, I couldn't believe how short sighted they were being. I wasn't panicking, and the shops were mostly empty, but there you go.

Not long after I got home news of the Toowoomba flash flood came through. My wife stopped laughing at me. We went into media soak up stage with the TV, ABC Radio and Facebook being our main source of news. Be very wary of all news sources, these days they all seem more intent on getting ratings than getting news correct. So many rumours were starting to go around that it was really difficult to tell fact from fiction. But in and around the BS there was news coming in, via facebook, that a 'wall of water' was heading down the Lockyer Valley and to tell people to get out. I did not see this on the TV or radio, and thought it just another rumour, but tragically it was correct.

Tuesday morning we all woke to the news of the devastation in the Lockyer Valley. At this point Brisbane was seriously starting to see the trouble she was in, and people descended on the shops. I went too, not for food but to stock up on beer (hey for me its a necessity). The two local supermarkets were shut, one for lack of staff, another was closed by the police due to lack of staff and a fight that broke out over bread. I live in one of the nicer areas of town... many staff don't live here and were worried about getting home again, so didn't show up for work. The car park was full of people desperately trying to stock up, but the only places open were the bottle shop (for alcohol) and the fish and chip shop - even MacDonalds had shut. So I got the rest of the stocks I needed but my neighbours didn't. The atmosphere was very tense.

Petrol stations all had long queues, and many had run dry. Luckily I had half a tank which I figured would do. We live high on a hill so evacuation was never a concern.

I went home and told my wife that what we didn't have we would do without, we weren't heading out again. The authorities in charge of Wivenhoe Dam were starting controlled releases in a desperate attempt to get water out of the dam safely. After 9 years of drought and water restrictions, drinking water was being thrown away. The dam was filling up at 5% an hour, and they were worried the emergency spillways would give way (they are designed to collapse if the water pressure gets too high) meaning the water would be out of control. This came VERY close to happening, another few hours rain would have done it, and the water levels in Brissie would have been twice as high as they were had it happened. Brisbane was, in the end, very very lucky.

We had agreed to try and help the RSPCA with phone work, as some of their staff couldn't get in. This would have entailed heading out again, I wasn't keen but my wife was insisting, I was hoping that by Wednesday morning the news would look so bad she would change her mind. We called on Wednesday morning and they were in full panic mode - water levels were higher than anticipated and they needed urgent help evacuating animals. The advice from the local council had been around preparing against 1974 flood levels, in 1974 they only had a foot of water into their back paddocks, but this time the levels were way higher. 35 years of riverside development had totally changed the water flood patterns. They had staff wading through water up to their armpits getting animals out. We headed out to try and help, but couldn't get through. Many roads were closed, the list of road closures on the council website was hopelessly out of date, so we had to do a lot of backtracking. Being new to town we didn't know all areas well, and GPS is useless at these times (it doesn't know which roads are closed or likely to be closed). We nearly had three collisions on the roads as other road users weren't paying due attention. Very stressful and surreal. In the end we were told they had all the animals out, so we headed home. Another hour and we would have been cut off 3 miles from home - very stressful. We got home, cuddled our dogs and cats and started on the beer.

Many people were taken by surprise because of the unexpected patterns of flooding. Because the council said prepare to 1974 flood levels, many people had to evacuate at the last minute as waters rose higher into their houses than they were expecting. Pets had to be left behind as assisted evacuation teams wouldn't take pets, and initially evacuation centres refused pets (this has become a political hot potato now, they say in future pets will be allowed, but in an emergency when evac spaces are scarce I bet they won't). Pets were being passed to strangers on the street to look after. I have met many people who either expected to be flooded because their house was inundated in 1974 but weren't, or vice versa.

We offered three different sets of people safe accommodation for them and their pets as their houses were likely to flood. Each one of them held off making the decision until too late - roads were blocked and they wouldn't have got through. In the end they were safe at home but it was close.

We were lucky, we were blocked off for 2 days but had enough supplies for 2 weeks. Power went down for two hours in the early hours as the power companies rerouted, luckily I had turned off all the computing equipment. Mobile (cell) coverage was in and out, ADSL failed for a couple of hours too, but POTS kept on working. If the dam flood spillways had failed, we would have lost power for a few days for sure, alongside safe drinking water and internet, and Brisbane would have been in a hell of a mess.

Friday and the cleanup began. We returned to the RSPCA and lent a hand. It is then you realise exactly what is in the water - clean it isn't. Sewage, oil, chemicals, mud, it was disgusting. Most of the houses condemned in Brisbane haven't been for water damage but for toxicity danger. Always put a sandbag in each toilet - pressure in the sewage caused by floodwater causes blowbacks and sewage blasted all over the house.

MAJOR LESSONS LEARNED
1. Always have 2 weeks of stocks for you and your family including pets. Food, fresh water, medicines, beer.

2. Listen to all news reports but don't succumb to every rumour. However if a rumour if true will effect you, be on your guard or just get out in case its true.

3. Plan your evacuation well in advance for you and your family INCLUDING pets. Don't rely on emergency services or evac centres to help you care for your pets - its probably down to you and you alone. Get out early and stay out.

4. Keep your POTS as ADSL and VOIP are useless in a power cut, and mobile /cell services are always first to fail. POTS can give you voice communications and dial up internet. Many info sites will be text only in an emergency due to the fluid nature of information at these times, and higher traffic to them - dial up is better than nothing. POTS isn't just the line but an old fashioned wired handset that takes power from the telephone exchange too!

5. Facebook is a great way to stay in touch. The Queensland Police and local council could update their facebook pages more quickly than their websites, so news came out quickly in a rapidly changing situation. They could also quash rumours immediately too. I saw 12 separate rumours that the water supply was unsafe - these were quashed in minutes. I never considered a facebook account as an emergency resource before.

6. Don't worry if people laugh at you being prepared - who cares so long as you are keeping yourself and loved ones safe. They look the idiots in the long run not you.

7. Don't rely on GPS, paper maps and local knowledge are best.

8. Wifey no longer refuses to carry her handbag safety kit - she carries it proudly and sees it as a sign of my love for her. Which it is.

I know most of this is basics to most of you but hopefully you all find something interesting in it!