'I still have nightmares a month on after Debbie'

Sandy Petrie still hasn't been able to pick up the pieces a month after Cyclone Debbie

A month after Cyclone Debbie destroy Sandy Petrie's roadhouse is still abandoned. Picture: Mark Bailey

IT TOOK just three hours for Cyclone Debbie to wipe away everything Sandy Petrie took 30 years to develop, including his two dogs, home and service station.

Now, exactly a month on, he is living in his daughter's house at Wowan, two hours north-west of Gladstone, waiting for insurance assessors to inspect his Lotus Creek Roadhouse.

The 67-year-old said he has dreams about the floodwaters rising and has woken up in cold sweats thinking his bed was floating.

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On the afternoon of March 28, Mr Petrie was loading his two dogs into his car when he saw the lights in his Lotus Creek Roadhouse flickering.

The floodwaters were rising and he had left his generator on. He left the dogs to turn off the generator and before he could return more than two metres of water was running through the area.

"It was like a tsunami of water," he said. "The car was swept away as were my two dogs."

To survive he took refuge in the second level of his A-frame home.

"I didn't know if it was safe up there but it was all that was left," he said. "I spent one horrible night. I could hear the water coming in and things banging against the building."

When he was able to inspect his roadhouse it had been destroyed. Cars were found in trees, five-man dongas were missing, fuel pumps and their pipes dragged out of the ground and moved 20m away.

One cut to his leg has since started festering and he has been making regular trips to hospital to see doctors and counsellors, to treat his leg and his mind.

"But you have to laugh or you will go crazy, you know. I think of myself as lucky I am alive," he said. "Personally I am pretty alright but I have to go back there and that's when I will find out."

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Mr Petrie plans on heading back north to Lotus Creek next week after assurances from his insurance company that an assessor would make the two and a half hour trip from Rockhampton.

"I would love to have something up and going again, but not as big, because it took me 30-odd years to build that up and it took within three hours for it to be washed away," he said. "But it depends on how much insurance I get and how much I have to put into it."

In the meantime the community has been rallying around him.

His daughter's gofundme page has raised $12,655 to help him get back on his feet.

"The community have been terrific," he said. "There's a good community at Lotus Creek where I live and even for their sake I'd like to get running to give them fuel and different things."

Originally published as 'I still have nightmares a month on after Debbie'