Family counts blessings after landslide near miss
By Laine Clark
Startled by barking dogs, Aaron Pike woke up with a jolt.
A bleary-eyed Pike initially did not see what had set off his pets at 3am when he grabbed his torch and walked outside.
“I was like ‘what’s going on’,” he said.
A family were lucky to escape a massive landslide, triggered by heavy rain. Credit: Aaron Pike
On closer inspection, Pike was shocked to discover a massive landslide triggered by heavy rainfall had come within metres of a north Queensland nature stay.
“We are so thankful that’s where it pulled up. We are very lucky it stopped,” he said.
However, Pike and his family did not emerge unscathed.
Damage caused by the landslide to the holiday venue near Cardwell is set to shut down the site for up to 12 months.
For the past year Pike and his wife Suellen had been operating the site.
His family-of-seven now have no fixed address or income.
“We had to get our stuff and get out, it wasn’t safe,” Pike said.
“Our kids are a bit shaken up and upset about it all.”
Reconstruction work is expected at the site as the clean-up begins across north Queensland after record rainfall triggered flooding, claiming two lives and forcing hundreds to evacuate.
“The holiday stay had been our income for the last 12 months, and the last 2½ months had been slow with not much coming in,” Pike said.
“I have to look for another job. We’ve been working on the basics with not much food around the place with roads cut off [by flooding].
“We’ve got to knuckle down now and make ends meet.”
A nearby bed and breakfast kindly reached out to provide the Pike family accommodation for a month.
After that, Pike said he was not sure what the future held.
A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to help the Pike family, with almost $7000 raised by Thursday.
“It’s all up in the air but we are all banding together,” Pike said.
“The landslide had come directly toward us, ending up about 70 metres from our front door.
“It could have been a lot worse. We are still here to tell the tale.”
AAP