Queensland floods: The day that ‘life … everything important’ was washed away
For Sarah Matthews, there was life before January 10, 2011, and life after that grim Monday when the ‘inland tsunami’ hit, killing her parents and 22 other people.
For Sarah Matthews, there was life before January 10, 2011, and life after that grim Monday when the “inland tsunami” hit the family property midway up the Toowoomba range, killing her parents and 22 other people.
Ten years on, she is still coming to terms with that loss and the cruel twist of fate that also claimed the life of her darling brother, Sam, after he helped save their little sister from the churning flood, only to die six months later in the saddest of circumstances.
Ms Matthews, 36, is speaking publicly of those events for the first time, marking the 10th anniversary of the lethal flash floods that crashed through Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley west of Brisbane, bringing to a harrowing head Queensland’s summer of sorrow in 2010-11.
Parents Steve and Sandy Matthews were swept to their deaths when the quiet, leafy retreat at Spring Bluff was inundated by wave after wave of foaming water.
“That was the pivotal point in my life,” the young woman said on a wet and grey day in Brisbane, her three children by her side. “There is life before then, and life after. It has never been the same since that moment, not in any way.
“You’ve lost people, you’ve lost the life you knew, you’ve lost just about everything that was important to you, and then the next 10 years is all about finding a life again. That’s been a hard journey.”
Ms Matthews said the patter of rain on a tin roof, a sound she used to love living in the family compound at Spring Bluff, still fills her with dread, transporting her back to when she heard an ear-splitting cracking noise and looked out the window on a horrifying sight.
The placid creek that separated her cottage from the homestead in which her parents lived was a raging torrent. Floodwaters had converged from three directions, “pumping and ferocious, like something I had never seen” and only the roof of Steve and Sandy’s home was showing.
Ms Matthews called police and was told a crew would get to her when they could: Toowoomba’s CBD had gone under and the flood was cascading through the valley towards the township of Grantham, where 12 would die. Others perished at Postmans Ridge, Helidon and Murphy’s Creek. “It was crazy,” she remembered.
She locked the door on her babies, Israel, 2, and Vera, 1, and ran to the water’s edge, calling for all she was worth. A big gum tree crashed down beside her. Through the curtain of rain, she made out the figure of Sam, 20, standing on a pile of debris and clinging to the roof, the fast-flowing water tugging at him.
The thunder of the flood was so great they couldn’t hear each other.
Somehow, Sam grabbed two twigs and fashioned a “V” – Victoria was safe.
He had been caught outside with their father, a fit 56-year-old electrician who had moved the family up from Wollongong, NSW, in 2005; their cars were bobbing like corks on the surging torrent. “Let them go,” Steve shouted as they fought their way inside the flooded house.
Victoria, then 15, and her mother had climbed on to a bench in the kitchen as the room began to fill. Sam and his sister struggled along the corridor towards the bedrooms. Exactly what happened to their parents is not known, but Ms Matthews’ best guess is that the fridge was torn from its position and blocked their way through to the back of the house.
Her siblings heard Sandy, 46, scream before they were lost to the flood. “They would have gone under and not come up,” Ms Matthews said. “It would have been violent, horrible, just atrocious.”
Similar ordeals were playing out along the length and breadth of the Lockyer Valley as the afternoon wore on; people were lifted from rooftops by military choppers or pulled from tree branches in the nick of time. Victoria survived thanks in large measure to her big brother. He hoisted her through a ceiling hatch into the roof space, then climbed up himself. Sam crawled to the front of the house, punched a hole in the ceiling and emerged on the front landing to find help, where Ms Matthews spotted him.
They were reunited when the flood retreated as suddenly as it had erupted. Ms Matthews’ husband had finally made it home from work and set out with irrepressible Sam to look for the missing couple, Steve and Sandy. No one held out much hope. Soon enough, word came through that their bodies had been found 8km or so downstream. Ms Matthews had to see them, to say goodbye. It was nearly dark by the time she reached her father’s side; the force of the water had stripped his clothing away. She gently brushed back her mother’s hair. “It was a blessing to be able to find them,” Ms Matthews said.
The ensuing months were a blur. Funerals had to be arranged, her parents’ estate finalised, Steve’s business wound up – all in the absence of the requisite documents that were destroyed along with just about everything else the family owned.
Ms Matthews had been three months’ pregnant with her third child, Eleanora, now 9, when the flood hit. After the insurance came through, she and Victoria went halves in a home in nearby Toowoomba while Sam bought a block of land at the back of Murphy’s Creek where Selwyn Schefe, 52, and his six-year-old daughter, Katie, had died.
July 27, 2011, should have been a happy day for the family, a day to celebrate and reset after all they had endured. It was Israel’s third birthday and his new sister had arrived a fortnight earlier. But alarm bells started to ring when someone phoned to say there had been a fire at Sam’s property and they couldn’t get hold of him.
It turned out that old Jaguar sedan he bought with his dad had caught alight. Sam had filled a shipping container with what he had salvaged from the Spring Bluff compound, as well as furniture and clothing gifted to him to start over. Ms Matthews believes he was trying to close it up when the flames spread: she was told a backdraft might have caused him to be overcome by the smoke. By the time the fire brigade arrived Sam was dead.
The upheaval continued. Ms Matthews’ marriage failed and she moved with the children to Brisbane. Victoria got on with things, found a partner, explored her business options. Ms Matthews tries to count the many good features of her new life. The kids are great and she has “joyous memories” of her parents and brave brother. “They were amazing people, really good souls,” she said. “I haven’t met their equal.”
She’s not looking forward to Sunday’s anniversary and the emotions it is sure to stir up. Even now, the loss cuts deep. “Every day you want what you had but you know you can’t have it,” she said. “You live in this sort of space where you have to move on with your life, always carrying this pain.
“The way I have heard it described is a darkness, and it sits with you. It’s like a dream because it’s inaccessible.”
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