Deb Ruane survives night trapped in Brooweena flood waters

A Queensland flood survivor has fought back tears as she recalled the night she spent trapped and clinging to her two dogs and a soggy couch as the flood waters rose inside her home. The 62-year-old grandmother thought she was going to die.

Brooweena woman Deb Ruane has lived through her share of traumatic experiences, but nothing as terrifying as the night she spent on a half-submerged couch clinging to her two fur-babies as rising floodwaters raged around her.

The 62-year-old grandmother fought tears to retell the events of January 7, 2022, when a “tropical low” – the remnants of ex-tropical cyclone Seth, dumped about 650mm of water in Wide Bay in one night.

It was a freak rain event that left towns across the Fraser Coast and Gympie regions reeling after raging rivers and creeks burst banks, carried cars off destroyed roads and inundated homes and businesses.

When the rain started to come down Deb was at her Brooweena home, 50km west of Maryborough and a stone’s throw from the usually-dry Clifton Creek, with her two “kids” Bill and George, twin staffie-crosses.

The house, an old wooden structure resting on three-foot high steel stumps, is one of three across from the creek that runs through an adjacent saw mill – the industry that for years has put the tiny town of 100 residents on the map.

In the yard, a small dam sometimes sent water up the back steps – but in the seven years Deb had lived on the property – it had always subsided.

“When I saw the water coming up to the third back step I didn’t take too much notice,” she said.

“I got my medication and put them on my bedside table and lay down, but within half an hour I had water coming in the front door, back door, coming up through the floor.”

Deb said by the time it got to her knees she couldn’t find her phone. It was 8pm.

“I found a torch before the power blew but the light wasn’t very strong. Thank God I’ve got a landline.

“I rang triple-0, but they couldn’t send a helicopter because of the wind and they couldn’t send a boat and they asked me to get on the roof, but I couldn’t because I had the two dogs.”

The hours that followed were terrifying. A 20-litre petrol can with a loose top had been swept into the house, sending petrol swirling through the rising water.

“I’m nearly 62 and I’ve never been that petrified in my life. By the time the water covered everything I was praying and praying and praying to God.

“I couldn’t go to sleep – the place was inundated. Fridges and freezers were floating around me, my car was banging around outside.

“I wasn’t safe there. I kept waiting and hoping and hoping. They said if conditions changed a boat would come.

“All I cared about was holding on to my two boys on this lounge. I just held them and just kept saying ‘it’s going to be all right – someone is going to come and get us’.”

In the early hours of the morning when the water had reached a metre above the floor, Deb said she closed her eyes for 10 minutes, not wanting to open them.

“It was either going to go up or down and I thank God because it stayed there and then it started very slowly to decline.

“God carried us through.”

In the light, she heard a nearby neighbour sing out, and she was helped to safety – wading through chest-deep water in her front yard to escape.

Flood waters in Maryborough. Pic John Wilson

Deb now faces piecing her life back together. The neighbours housed Deb for the first five days and a small team helped clean up; fishing out 20 trailer-loads of Deb’s unsalvageable belongings to take to the dump.

This included precious photo albums of her eldest daughter she lost in a car crash 20 years ago.

“I lost everything. I didn’t have anything expensive – but my photo albums were all floating around.”

Neighbours have lent Deb a bed and fridge and the hot water was reinstated on Tuesday, January 18, but there is still a huge clean-up ahead.

“I’m just taking an hour at a time, half an hour at a time, 10 minutes at a time. I just can’t think straight.

“I’ve been through two floods in town but it wasn’t like this – it wasn’t like rapid water coming through the house – we had warning.”

She said the scariest moment was being told by triple-0 they couldn’t send anyone in to help her – “but they wished me all the luck in the world.”

Deb said if anyone has been in the same situation she would like to help them out.