Pictures from the Flood--Queen's Birthday Weekend

One day you're having lunch at Nobby's Beach (NOTE: This picture was taken in January, in summer), the next there's a six-story tall tanker running over your boogie board! (By the way, that's a salmon, sliced beets and lettuce sandwich, and a can of Kirk's Creaming Soda. Really delicious!)
Nobby's Light is in the background of the two photos. (NOTE: I did not take the tanker photo. It's from the ABC website. I tried to see the boat yesterday, but the pelting rain and fierce wind drove me back home.) In the aerial view, Sarah's hospital is located just behind and to the right of the row of white high rises reaching out toward the beach, just above the prow of the boat.

Here are Sarah's impressions from last night, in the midst of the storm: "It has been raining now for over 24 hours. An enormous Panamax size coal ship was stranded on the the beach today by high winds. The crew was rescued by helicopter. The eye of the storm came. Then the rain began again. The streets of Newcastle are flooded. I had to wade through a foot of water to get out of the hospital. On our way home from work today, we saw cars stranded in the flooded streets, water up to the windows. In outlying areas, rivers have filled that have been empty for seven long, drought filled years. People have been swept off of bridges. Newcastle is in chaos. We drove down street after city street, only to turn back when the flood waters became too deep at the intersections. We finally made it home, driving riskily through water as high as the body of the car, water washing over the windshield. That was almost 2 hours ago - and it's still raining. Pouring. The water drums on the metal roof of our house. But our street is high enough to stay dry. For now. It's still raining."

It was the biggest storm here in 3o years, and nobody could remember the streets flooding in Newcastle. The last big storm was also the last time a coal boat grounded and the last time a major helicopter rescue was undertaken. That ship, the Sygna, still sits at Stockton Beach, just north of town. It is a tourist attraction now and the largest wreck on the Australian coast. Good for that somewhat secluded location, but a similar landmark on Nobby's Beach would be a real shame.

These pictures are all from our neighborhood, Hamilton (North, to pinpoint it for the locals), within five blocks of our house on Buchanan Street. The SES van had been abandoned overnight--you can see the waterline mark just under the red stripe. All the cars at the big intersection of Samdon and Donald had also been abandoned.
Around 1AM to 2AM cyclonic winds hit town, blowing part of the roof off of a building at Tudor and Bridge Streets, one block from Nicholas and Peter's school. Big trees were knocked down, including the one below, across the street from the Hamilton Library. I will never forget feeling the house shake after one windy blast, then the bed gently shuddering a couple of times with the next gust.

Nicholas and I took a walk around 9:30 PM and were astonished to see water pooled on the sidewalk just two houses away and then the rest of the block flooded, cars parked in the middle of the street, and Gregson Park completely submerged. We walked up and down a couple of nearby blocks trying to find a way to get to the park. We waded through some water up to our shins, but otherwise, no go. Or at least, we didn't have any reason to go waist deep.

The next morning I expected to still see water everywhere, but it was all gone, except for huge pools remaining in Gregson Park and covering the Hamilton Bowling Club lawns. But the damage had been done. The entire block of Bibby Street, for instance, had been flooded 1/3 to 1/2 way up the front doors. Since most Hamilton houses are one-story, many people had evacuated overnight. Newcastle got 333 millimeters of rain; about 13 inches (approx. 25 millimeters = 1 inch). Some parts of the region got over 400 millimeters. For comparison, Pittsburgh averages 37 inches annually and just over 4 inches in June, the rainiest month.

Newcastle had a big earthquake in 1989, just after Christmas, and Hamilton was the epicenter. Many buildings in the Hamilton business district and beyond were knocked down or seriously damaged, a dozen or so people died and hundreds were injured. So there's no comparing the final impact of the flood to the quake, at least in Hamilton. However, the quake itself lasted only a few seconds, while this natural disaster--as officially designated by the New South Wales state government-- went on for 24 hours of wind and rain and hit Sydney, too. So in one sense, the flood was much more engaging for the community. People listened to and called in to ABC radio all day for reports of closed streets, etc., and everyone followed the progress of the boat grounding and helicopter rescue. And I'm sure many celebrated, at least in the backs of their minds, the (temporary?) end of the drought.