Caravonica legend Chris King rebuilds flood damaged home

A family of four lived in their shed for two months while this husband and father set to work cleaning and rebuilding his flood damaged home in Far North Queensland.

Working 14 hour days while living in a back shed without aircon, lifelong Caravonica resident Chris King has laboured like a Trojan to make his family home liveable after being told by his insurer that contractors wouldn’t be available for six months.

Mr King or ‘Kingy’ to his mates decided he wasn’t prepared to wait and to set to work rebuilding his Lake Placid Road home after muddy Barron River flood water surged through the property on December 17.

Caravonica residents Chris King and Krystal King comfort each other while cleaning up the flood water that inundated their Lake Placid Road home on December 17. Picture: Brendan Radke

He said his insurers advised work repairing the home would not begin until June and would take until December 2024 to complete.

But his father is a licensed builder and it turns out Mr King is pretty handy himself.

“We lost beds, lounges, the cabinets, the kitchen, we lost pretty much everything, I was a bit in denial about it happening, I’ve lived here 46 years and went to Caravonica school, we’ve had floods before, but this was next level,” Mr King said.

Lake Placid Road at Caravonica as the water recedes following days of heavy rain in December. Picture: Brendan Radke

“The mould was just instant, on the floors and ceiling, to watch your house rot in front of your eyes was a bitter pill to swallow, and our insurer couldn’t get to it until Christmas.”

Mr King, wife Krystal, and children Kaden, 10, and Kiana, 7, moved into a newly-built shed with a mezzanine level, slept under mosquito nets and had a camp kitchen for 51 days.

The upper story of the home was habitable and the King family’s generosity has seen them offering the first floor to neighbours who have had nowhere to live after their home was inundated with floodwaters.

Caravonica resident Chris King and his family have moved from the shed back into their home after he put in a mammoth 51 dasy cleaning up and repairing damage. Picture: Brendan Radke

“Caravonica has been a ghost town, a lot of people are not capable of doing what I’m doing, we won’t see them for a year, there are builders here from all over Australia,” he said.

He said the kids coped well and he found his son showering under the garden house at one point.

“It was a full camp set up, but we made it work.

“I’ve opened my home up to the neighbourhood, the community has been so good to me, people dropping food off, and coming in to lend a hand.

“There were some tough weeks,” he said.

Chris King toiled in the heat to repair his flood-damaged Caravonica home after the December 17 flood. Picture: Brendan Radke

Mr King has been working day and night for two months to get his home habitable by his birthday on February 17, which is also the two month anniversary of the flood.

His insurer had told him they were unable to start work before June, and they wouldn’t finish the work until Christmas.

So Mr King took extended leave from work at Integrated Aviation Maintenance as an aircraft engineer and began doing all of the work himself for two months straight.

Mr King said that his longest day was 14 hours, working indoors with no air conditioning, before going to the backyard to sleep in a shed with no air conditioning.

He has had one day off in the past two months.

Originally published as Caravonica legend Chris King rebuilds flood damaged home