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November 16th 2008 - Late sunday arvo, a massive storm cell built up in the forest and dam catchment area known as Brisbane Forest Park and moved at speeds up to 180klm/hr into my suburb (The Gap, Brisbane)... in just 30minutes it created $100M in damage, left 90 homes totally destroyed, 1200 uninhabitable 4000 with serious damage and in total 6000 damaged. The area was declared a natural disaster zone the next day when the full extent of the damage was seen in the daylight. We lost power for 4 days as most streets had downed power lines and every road on one half of The Gap was blocked by fallen trees and bit and pieces of houses and fences. For the next 4 weeks, tree mulchers worked to clear 35000 m2 of tree waste. the first 2 weeks they ran 24x7 chipping the fallen trees and branches, every park became a wood chip heap, you had to see the damage to believe it... as bad as any cyclone in north Queensland.
This tree base is over 2 meters high, all over The Gap there were these huge tree's but the 130klm winds combined with tennis ball sized hail shredded everything in its path. The hail was so loud my son said it sounded like a jet engine at full roar projecting stones out the rear.
The SES and City Council had crews working night and day for weeks clearing the streets while power lines were re-connected.
Tree shredders and mulchers worked 24 x 7 to shred the tree litter in the suburb, the council literally ran out of places to dump the stuff and trucks queued at the transfer station for hours to unload.
My pool was filled with tree trunks, branches, leaf debry and orange/brown sandy dirt. It was about a foot thick on the bottom.
It appears the pot plants were picked up and flung like paper cups smashing everywhere, the dirt and mulch in the pot clogged the drains and the storm water flooded a 120sqm area and filled into the pool. The pots must have weighed in at 100kg+ each
I also dragged 4 chairs, a glass table, bricks and assorted junk from the pool over the next 4 weeks. The water was such a disgusting brown colour you could not see anything past a few inches in. I poured 50L of chlorine in it to regain control of it.
600 power lines were taken down by trees. This one down around the corner kept my power off for 4 days. I now have a 6.5Kva generator coming up from Sydney so I can survive the next storm. I had to shower at relatives and I used my gas stove from the trip to the GP to cook with.
Only the main roads were accessible on the western side of The Gap, most side streets were blocked from access for a few days till cleared. This is Payne road, the tree loss was massive as the road must have formed a funnel for the winds.
Sections of the two main roads, "Waterworks Road" and "Settlement Road" were closed in section to clear the debry away. One section was closed for a week to remove material.
Some side streets were blocked for more than a week. Somehow the garbage truck did its rounds, they ran the service every day for people to throw out food since there was no power for days.
As people drove through back streets, this is what greeted you in most streets in the suburb.... big trees across the road. In our street we had 3 chainsaws so we cleared our own street pretty quickly.
One family I know lost $30K in landscaping that had only just been finished, the house below left lost a front wall and its roof, the house below right lost the roof, most of the top level and the rear of the house.
This area of The Gap (South West side) got hit first and suffered incredible damaged, even CNN broadcast it around the world, my neighbour was in Dubai and saw a comprehensive report of it on CNN featuring this street and the surrounding area!
The car on the right tried to cross the road when the creeks flooded, for some stupid reason the driver thought he (or she) could drive through a metre plus high of water. The creeks were lined with big stands of trees which ended up clogging the creeks, over the week more storms hit and dragged the debry down stream to Ashgrove and Red Hill which ultimately suffered flooding in low lying areas. There were wrecked cars everywhere in The Gap. and anything parked near a bridge was moved by the water to somewhere else. I am isolated by two bridges both flooded a few times over the next two weeks.
Not a good week for Brisbane!
The ARMY arrive, the suburb was declared a "Natural Disaster Zone", the State Premier and Prime Minister visited a few times. 1000's of SES volunteers worked non stop and the Army came in and loaded everything into huge trucks for shredding.
Within two weeks most of the trees on roads and critical trees on private land were removed and shreaded. For the first time in 25 years you can see all the homes from my house (I live up a hill).
The schools were closed for a week while they were cleared of debry. The primary school had huge trees all around it, so now it has lots of damaged buildings.
