Jumpin' In The Night #4: Notes From Underwater

As the flood waters rose around Brisbane, ANDREW STAFFORD pondered what records he’d save. Photos by ELLENI TOUMPAS.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] It's two weeks after the floods in Brisbane, and the power still isn't back on at my place. It won't be for at least another week, maybe more - it's not possible to say right now. Hot water will be later. It's been, to say the least, a disruptive time, which in part accounts for the delay in the arrival of this column.

I live in St Lucia, in Brisbane's inner south-west on the main drag out to the University of Queensland. The suburb is spread across a small promontory of land, enfolded by one of the Brisbane River's many twists and turns as it winds its way slowly out to the mudflats of Moreton Bay. My street lies on the northern reach of this section of the river, and it remains one of the worst hit in the city.

I live on the second floor above the ground level of a block of units. It would have to be a truly monumental flood for me to be at serious risk of inundation. So when it became apparent late on January 11 that I'd have to evacuate, I was overcome by an almost paralysing sense of fatalism.

I'd been down to the river earlier that day, and watched an entire pontoon (with a boat and trailing jet-ski still attached) sailing merrily downstream. Then another, and yet another. By then my ferry terminal was slowly disappearing underwater. Still, the river had metres to climb up an embankment to threaten my little corner of the world. In the back of my mind I knew - we had all been told over and over again - about the huge volume of water cascading downstream from Wivenhoe Dam. Still, it seemed impossible.

My complacency wasn't pricked until my downstairs neighbour pointed out the discoloured bricks which marked the peak of the 1974 floods. That was just below her ceiling - and my floor. This flood, the radio kept telling us, would be worse than '74. That was when the paralysis set in.

What would I save? I actually asked myself, qiute seriously, whether it even mattered. By then it was emerging that whole communities in the Lockyer Valley such as Murphy's Creek and Grantham had been devastated, with major losses of life and loved ones. Houses had been simply swept away. My only asset of consequence was my record collection. Suddenly, it didn't seem worth all that much anymore.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

The sheer scale of the event sent me into a tailspin of confusion. If even my rented second-floor dwelling wasn't safe, I reasoned, then what was the point in moving anything? The idea that every centimetre counted in a flood never occurred to me: if I was going to lose anything, then it seemed as if I might as well lose everything. At least that way I wouldn't have to make tough choices about the things I most cherished.

I began to contemplate the possibility of starting again, almost as if it would be easy. Maybe I'd accumulate an entirely new collection, full of new music I'd never otherwise have gotten around to hearing. Hell; maybe I'd learn to love jazz. What was the point in tracking down all the stuff I already knew again?

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] It was bizarre reasoning really, and entirely inappropriate to the situation, but at that point everything was so surreal that actually engaging with the brutal reality of what was going on was difficult. That's how I explain the cars left stranded under houses by people who simply couldn't get their heads around the height of the river that was about to engulf them.

I faffed around, watching the news reports on TV and browsing the net. By that time my housemate was getting his treasures out, moving the rest up high and making hasty preparations to leave. Frankly, I needed a slap. Thankfully my younger brother arrived to give me one. (What else are younger siblings for?)

It was he that got a couple of boxes of records out, along with the equipment needed to play them. I salvaged a couple more shoeboxes of 45s. The rest got moved up high. He pointed to the CDs; I said I was prepared to lose them - an interesting comment, I suppose. Who, when push comes to shove, cares about CDs anymore? He moved them - all of them - up onto the kitchen shelving anyway. We got out at 10.30pm, just as the water began to cut off sections of my street.

In the end it was all for not very much. The waterline peaked below the '74 flood. My unit remained unscathed. My downstairs neighbour, who alerted me to the imminent danger, is 82. She'd endured the loss of a daughter and two properties in her lifetime; now she had a metre of water through her house. Life really isn't fair sometimes.

Downstairs, I lost a washing machine and a couple of boxes of children's books which I had stored, many of which my mother would have read to me. My neighbour lost a collection of love letters from her late husband, among hundreds of other possessions. I fled to the safety of my girlfriend's house; my neighbour, I later found out, spent three nights on the floor of an evacuation centre. I am consumed with guilt. Why didn't I check on her earlier?

“My only asset of consequence was my record collection. Suddenly, it didn't seem worth all that much anymore.”

The cleanup was both monumental and devastating. Thousands of friends, relatives and volunteers descended on our street, which remained coated with a thick layer of mud, silt and sewage. For those that got off lightly, like me, it was inspiring. But there was also the sight of older residents, collapsing in shock and grief. It will be a long time before Brisbane and south-east Queensland bounces back from this.

It was reported that Powderfinger wouldn't be bowing to requests that they reform for flood relief. The news made me sad (please, don't give me any flippant nonsense about how they're doing everyone a favour by not playing). They are instead donating a previously unreleased song, which they've urged fans to buy. My guess is that song has remained unreleased until now for a good reason.

A single Powderfinger show - even a run of shows - has the potential to raise vastly more money. Sure, the timing for them might be poor. But it wasn't too hard for Midnight Oil, a band Powderfinger have long professed to admire, to donate their services to Wave Aid following the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, not too long after they called it quits.

Powderfinger, to be fair, have lent their name to a string of good causes in the past. Come on, guys. Do it for Brisbane.

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Andrew Stafford is a Brisbane-based writer and the author of 'Pig City'. He’s currently working on his second book for University of Queensland Press. His column appears monthly.