The rain came down, the tide came in and the flood waters rose

February 15Th 2008 is a day the people of Mackay, Queensland in Australia will never forget.We were inundated by a one in two hundred year weather event. The worst flooding/rain disaster in Australia's history for the time span it took to flood most of our town.
Here is the time span from my point of view.
4.30am - 5am got up to see where hubby was, he had gotten up at 3am unsettled, found him in asleep in daughters room (she was away for the night)and he couldn't sleep thinking he might wake me in our bed.
5am turn on America's today program, hubby seeing that I am awake joins me back in our bed.
6am Sunrise program begins.
sometime after that and maybe 7 am I awoke to the TV not on, thinking my hubby turned it off. Noticed that the clock is no longer on. Storm must have knocked out the power, I was not concerned about that though.
Got up and went to get a glass of water, looked to me left into the rumpus room and thought what is all that stuff at the step. On closer inspection I realised that the stuff I saw was things floating in our rumpus room.
With a wholly shit and other words I run back to the bedroom screaming to my husband we are flooding.
Still not sure of the time, by the time we get back to the rumpus room the water is starting to lap up over the step.
What to save first, photos are first on our list and anything that is of sentimental value to us. All is placed up as high as we can get it.
Next to save is as much stuff as we can, the water is rising extremely fast about a foot in half an hour and it was still rising.
We saved as much as we could and went outside to see what the street was like and OMG, the street rises in the middle and we couldn't see the traffic island in the middle.
We were starting to wonder how high is it going to get.
Tried ringing family and friends around town and the phones both land line and mobile are not working properly. I manage to get hold of my Aunty down in NSW, I just cried we are flooding and she was devastated for us.
The water started to go down and when it had all gone there was such a mess.
Carpets saturated, wardrobes and computer desk wet and starting to swell from all the water. The kitchen and bathroom cupboards are also starting to swell.
My husband is a DJ at our local community radio and he has about a thousand Cd's that are all over the floor of the rumpus room after floating out of the shelves and bags they were in.
As our daughter was not at home, sadly her room was the last thing on our minds and she lost so much, her bed, her many designer bags, clothes, shoes, her computer and sadly her design books she has been designing clothes for about 3 years now and most of her design books were too badly damaged to salvage.
We also lost two cars and our caravan, luckily we have insurance and we are going to be OK. It will take some time to recover and to get our house back to the way it was. The main thing is we are all alive, both family and our pets. Despite all the rain and the rapid flooding not one life was lost and for that we should be very grateful.