“Ruined“ was how one business owner on Mary River Road, Cooroy, described his situation after three nights of flooding have forced him to shut down, while neighbouring residents spent sleepless nights protecting their property as floodwaters swirled around them.
A few doors from the business, Craig, who lives in a ground floor apartment with his cat, Pud, woke, surrounded by water about 2.30am Wednesday last week.
“I sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag on carpet. I woke up with water on my feet. When I realised, it was right through my apartment,“ he said.
“The current knocked me into stuff. I sprained my ankle.
“I ran out the front to see what was going on.“
In an upstairs apartment, Brandon had woken when his air-conditioning stopped working.
“The whole road was flooded. It was knee-deep, the power was still on,“ he said.
“I called out to Brandon (upstairs) to take my cat. I ended up saving a fair bit of gear – just lifted it up. But I lost carpets and quality furniture, Craig said.
“Then we got hit again Thursday and Friday nights.
“The first day was a bit of a shock. Now it’s – let’s all tuck in and get the job done.“
Craig has spent days cleaning out the contaminated flood water, ripping up carpets, washing and salvaging what he can. When the sun came out on Monday, he was able to move items outside to dry, all under the watchful eye of Pud.
A few doors up, Sunlight Aqarium and Holistic Pet Products is holding a flood sale – everything must go.
“I’ve been here about 11 years,“ Paul said.
“I’ve had the shop for five years. I’ve got no flood insurance. I’m closing down. I can’t rebuild. We didn’t see this one coming. It’s been flooded before but not as bad as this one.“
After the first night of flooding Paul and his neighbours, who live upstairs, worked to clean out the shop. Then worse floods came Thursday and Friday nights.
“We were all evacuated Friday morning,“ neighbour Chantelle said. “They dumped us off in the main street.“
Next door resident Danielle and her brother and property owner, Ward, went to great lengths to save their house and it worked.
Before the floods arrived they sandbagged the entrances. Then when rain started to pour down on the front of the house, Ward spent Wednesday building a roof over the front pergola.
Every night they cleaned and mopped to keep the water at bay. When water started streaming inside, Ward knocked a hole in the back wall for it to escape.
“There was water in there, a nice little river. We put the effort in to keep it dry,“ Ward said.
Around the corner, campers at the RV stopover were visited by SES about 4.30am last Wednesday who walked them safely out of the flooded site.
Nev Evans and his wife, Sandra, had been parked by the creek, where their flooded run-about car remains. On their way back to Doonan after a trip around Australia the couple, along with others in the stopover, have relocated temporarily to the Pirates carpark.
“The Chamber of Commerce president visited us to say we can stay here as long as we like. The police came to see if we’d been able to get food and supplies,“ he said.
It’s part of the journey for the self-sufficient campers.
