Grantham Floods, 10 years on: Survivor recalls terrifying day as town was hit by inland tsunami that claimed 12 lives

Allan Marshall still recalls very clearly what happened on January 10 in 2011 in Grantham. It was the day the floods virtually destroyed the town, and claimed his father.

Allan Marshall fights back tears as he reads out the phone call transcript between his father Bruce and triple-0 operators in the minutes before he died in the horrific 2011 Grantham floods.

At just after 4pm on January 10, the water was up to Bruce’s floorboards; less than 10 minutes later he was waist-high in it; by 4.18pm, he was standing on his bed and the floodwaters were up to his shoulders.

Phone calls to his number went unanswered after that.

“We believe he went into the bedroom and stood on the bed,” Mr Marshall said.

“We believe he was standing on the bed, and he got knocked off, and when he got knocked off he couldn’t get up.

“He was 66.”

Allan Marshall holds the only photo he has of his late father, Bruce Marshall, who died in the Gratham floods. Picture: Kevin Farmer

It is just one of the countless tragic stories that came out of the events of that afternoon, which Mr Marshall and the town he loves will never forget.

A rampaging inland tsunami blew through the small Lockyer Valley community, claiming nearly everything in its path like houses, cars and residents.

The worst part of the situation for Mr Marshall is by the time he realised how much danger his father was in, it was too late to do anything.

“Unless you’re in the situation, you’ve got no idea,” he said.

“You can’t do anything about it. I was standing up in the roof (of a neighbour’s house) – you couldn’t get down, because you would be fighting fast floodwater with debris in it.

“It took us days to realise that he wasn’t at the school, at Gatton or at Helidon.

“Not many people had phones on them.

“(Emergency services) were doing checks of every house to find and the police came and spoke to us — they said they found him in the bedroom.”

The Grantham flood destroyed more than 150 homes and claimed the lives of 12 people; the bodies of three residents were never found.

And yet the morning prior to the tsunami was eerily calm, according to Mr Marshall.

After all, it wasn’t even raining in Grantham.

“We had a bit of mist but there was no big rain,” Mr Marshall said.

“It flooded the night before, but there was nothing that indicated we were going to have a big inland tsunami.

“It was probably a foot deep (the night before) – it was normal flooding like you get in Grantham.

“We were used to floods in Grantham, you learned to live with it.”

After the floodwaters subsided overnight, Mr Marshall and his family enjoyed breakfast and lunch with a neighbour who had a highset house, blissfully unaware of what was to come.

Their first warning that something was wrong didn’t come from the emergency services, but an acquaintance.

“Everybody is calm and nobody knows what’s about to happen – there’s no water on the road, it’s not even raining in Grantham,” he said.

“About 3pm, one of the guys that works for (the neighbour) rings up, and he says to him that the water is a metre over the bridge at Helidon at the Lockyer Creek.

“We thought, ‘whatever’, and he said ‘no, the f---ing water is a metre over the bridge and you need to get the f--- out of there’.”

Grantham on Wednesday January 12, 2011. Photo Bev Lacey

Within a half-hour, the water started rolling in, becoming faster and faster.

“The water starts to come in the yard and it starts coming up the chain wire fence,” Mr Marshall said. 

“I decided to close the gates, tie the wheelie bins to the carport and by this point it’s already through the house, so we think we’ve got to get out of there.”

Mr Marshall, his partner and her kids, their 10-month-old daughter and two dogs all rushed back to the highset house, with everyone eventually moving to the roof to escape the floodwaters.

“The water was swirling, it wasn’t just a normal flood – it started to roll in (and) when it rolled in, we knew something drastic had happened, because it had a really fast current,” he said.

Allan Marshall who lost his father and family home in the Grantham floods now lives in the new part of Grantham after being part of the land swap deal. Picture: Kevin Farmer

“Our house got washed off the stumps, and it got jammed between a telegraph pole and elm trees.

“We watched the two other houses beside us — the floods took the stumps out and washed them away.

“We’re sitting here, doing nothing – we just thought we’ve got to pray to God that we survive, and if we don’t, we’ve done all we could do.”

After being rescued by emergency services and relocated to a nearby crisis centre, it was more than a week before the family was allowed to return to make sense of what had happened.

Now living in the new estate built to relocate residents, Mr Marshall said many people still live with the trauma generated from the floods.

Allan Marshall was a survivor of the 2011 Grantham Floods.

“All of the footage that comes on the TV in the next day or so is going to open up a lot of wounds that people can’t handle,” he said.

“A lot of people have PTSD and they can’t handle the footage or even going down to the memorial.

“People aren’t trying to forget it, it’s in your mind — people do deal with it differently.

“You’re watching the houses (nearby) with people in it screaming as they’re being washed into the paddock, and you think to yourself, ‘is that going to be us?’.”

Originally published as Grantham Floods, 10 years on: Survivor recalls terrifying day as town was hit by inland tsunami that claimed 12 lives