Teary-eyed flood victims along Barron River vow to regroup and rebuild
The residents along Lake Placid Road, Caravonica have had their homes “totalled” by flood water and say it’s helped them “realise what really matters”.
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Residents along Lake Placid Road, Caravonica have had their homes engulfed by flood water and they say it’s taught them to “realise what really matters”.
When Chris King went out on Sunday morning in knee-high flood water he felt something crawl up his leg.
“I said to my mate, bloody prawns hey, what are they doing,” he recalled.
When he looked he discovered it was two rats, using his leg as dry land.
“I nearly jumped 10 foot in the air.”
Mr King, 44, lives on Lake Placid road, Caravonica, and was one of dozens of homes which on Sunday were engulfed by water on the fringe of the Barron River.
He rushed to put as many things on the second storey of his house when he got the warning.
His next-door neighbour Vicky Mills, 66, said she was drinking a cup of tea and watching the news at around 10am on Sunday morning when she got a knock on the door from the police. “They said you need to evacuate, and I just couldn’t believe it,” she said.
“I’ve lived here for 25 years. I was just so scared.”
Ms Mills said she joined her neighbours on the second storey of their home just before the mighty Barron River broke, sending knee-high water right through their homes.
Flood water from the Barron River inundated the home of Vicky Mills on Lake Placid Road on Sunday night.
While some went into “flight mode”, Mr King went into “fight-mode” and went out into the flood to clear logs and branches to allow the water to flow through the area quicker.
At one stage he went to next door and with the water still around knee-height, he walked into their backyard and fell into a metre deep sinkhole – made by the flood – which left him up to his shoulders in water.
“It was on, man, it was on” he said.
“It’s totalled my house, but I did save some appliances.”
Showing the Cairns Post a photo he had saved of his family, drying on a trampoline, he began to tear up.
“I got to let it out, I got to let it out” he said.
“I’ve been bottling this up since it happened … all this is material s***, this brings it back to basics, back what really matters, the people you love. We can rebuild. We will get through this.”
Mr King quickly regained control of himself.
“It comes in waves mate, these emotions, it all comes in waves,” he said.
Meanwhile back at her house, Ms Mills said she was still “feeling a bit overwhelmed” by what has been happening.
There are four people shovelling mud and brushing her floors clean inside her house, where there are still patches of wet and mud on the floor.
They were total strangers, she said, who “just turned up and started to help”.
The Barron River in Cairns, Far North Queensland, has reached a record flood peak, with roads closed and homes flooded in the catchment area. Flood waters lap at the Kamerunga bridge on the Western Road, and despite the bridge remaining open, road access is still cut to the northern beaches of Cairns.
Barbara, who has been shovelling mud out of Ms Mill’s driveway for 45 minutes and showed no signs of slowing down, said her house wasn’t impacted, so thought “why not go help someone else?”.
Co-volunteer Sarah said: “We got a group together this morning, we have a large friendship group and put it out there that if you haven’t been impacted get out and about and help those who need it.”
They drove to the areas they knew most needed it and knocked on the doors of damaged houses to ask if they needed to help.
The Barron River might have broken its banks like never before, but on the streets of Caravonica – amid the smell of garbage, mud, and rotting fish – it had not broken the community’s spirit.
There were waves of goodwill, charity, love and perhaps – crocs.
“The last time it flooded here, the floods weren’t nearly as bad, we went outside because I thought it was frogs,” Mr King said. “It wasn’t – it just sounded like a frog. It was baby crocodiles crying out to their mothers, because they had been swept downstream away from them.”
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Originally published as Teary-eyed flood victims along Barron River vow to regroup and rebuild
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