Monkland resident Pauline Petrus counts herself as “fortunate” despite the fact she was powerless to stop a torrent of water breaching her bedroom on Saturday, 26 February last year.
Ms Petrus had turned the lower level of her home, a self contained apartment, into her bedroom suite after her mother, who Pauline had been caring for, had to go to an aged care facility.
The awful gurgling sound as the water backed up in the floor drains, and the inexorable march of the water as it climbed left her feeling utterly powerless.
“I suppose my overwhelming first reaction was disbelief, then helplessness,” she said.
“I could not believe my eyes when I first saw water entering my house late that day.
“I knew then that everything that I thought I could do to prevent this happening was, in effect, useless,” she said.
And the activity leading up to that point had been frenetic, with a neighbour suggesting to her to raise as much of her furniture and possessions to the upstairs area as she could.
Pauline said she had no idea the water could get as high as it did, having only lived in the area for three years previously.
“The lead up to trying to move as much as I could to higher ground was very stressful and tiring.
“I just remember eventually dissociating myself as a coping mechanism and wanting to fall asleep and go to bed as the water crept in.”
And that’s what she did – curling herself into a ball on a single bed upstairs.
“The next morning when I awoke I saw the damage that the ingress of water had done inside – wet sodden carpet and items strewn out of place everywhere,” she said.
She said there was an eerie stillness as the sun crept up and a silence unlike anything she’d experienced to that point.
“Outside, it was dead quiet, except for a few birds – all misty and damp – and what was familiar behind me was gone – trees, roads and houses were all submerged under the murky water,” she said.
“Gradually, the morning progressed and human voices could be heard as people gathered and spoke to each other.
“I was given a welcome cup of hot tea by some neighbours who had a little gas camp stove – I, myself, had no electricity or phone reception.”
Then, as the water steadily receded, Pauline struggled to clear out the downstairs and said that the help of volunteers from the Eumundi Fire Brigade was invaluable.
“They got in and ripped out the ruined carpet and cleared out all the muck – I couldn’t have got through it without their help,” she said.
“A year on I am still in the process of getting my house back to normal,” Pauline said.
“They say adverse events such as this can make you stronger.
“Perhaps, but it has been a very hard road and I have still not reached the end of it.”
