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road to recovery
of it was washed away, the
town of Grantham, now
relocated to higher ground, is
green and glowing once again.
toys by the force of the floodwater that swept
through Grantham on 10 January 2011.
Any further rain falling on the already sodden ground was running straight off and down city streets. The plates on the access holes down my road were banging up and down, swollen and bulging under the pressure of too much water. There had already been wide-scale flooding – the soil was oversaturated.
Then the phones really went berserk.
Toowoomba was one of many towns right across southeastern Queensland being hammered with devastating floodwaters. But then a report came in of Mother Nature unleashing the height of her fury not far away down the range, in the tiny Lockyer Valley town of Grantham. Reports started coming in of floodwater wreaking havoc in the centre of Grantham, of cars being swept away and piled on top of one another, and landslides. “There’s been a mini-tsunami,” distressed callers were saying. I needed to get working.
An 8m-high wall of water said to be travelling at speeds of up to 80km/h had smashed into the town without warning, swallowing everything in its path. “A wall of death coming towards us,” is how one witness described it.
Twelve lives were ultimately lost here and a further seven people died upstream in Murphys Creek, Spring Bluff and Postmans Ridge. As many as 119 homes suffered major structural damage or were completely swept away. The tiny town of Grantham, 100km west of Brisbane and with a population of just 634, was suddenly at the epicentre of the state’s grief.
I GREW UP AND went to school in Grantham. It’s nestled in one of the nation’s most important fruit and vegetable growing areas, but no-one really knew where the town was. In fact, when I was a kid, I remember one newspaper voting it Australia’s “most boring town”, much to the amusement of locals. Instead of the usual Welcome to Grantham sign as you entered town, 90 Australian Geographic someone had put up one that said Gone Fishin that flapped in the breeze, perfectly displaying the laid-back lifestyle of the locals.
Now, images of Grantham were being beamed around the world for the worst of reasons. This small farming community was the epicentre of trauma in an event that could only be described as something from a horror movie. The speed and force of floodwater that had roared through the town, ripping houses from their stumps and crumpling large iron sheds, was like nothing any locals had ever experienced. It threw cars, trucks and even semi-trailers around like toys and hurled everything, from shipping containers to boats, small aircraft, cement water tanks, powerlines, washing machines and untold other household items, into the waters of a deadly, swirling, treacherous inland tsunami. There had been no warning and there was no escape.
As their homes were being smashed and imploding around them, some residents hauled up onto rooftops of any remaining structures. Others remained hidden and unnoticed, clinging to tree branches and under eaves. Emergency Management Queensland helicopters were dispatched from Archerfield Airport,
Finch’s parents managed to
withstand the deluge. But
the debris just metres away
showed how lucky they were.
THE FOLLOWING DAY I was one of only two photographers or journalists who’d managed to gain entry into the stricken town. During the coming weeks hundreds of media would converge from all over Australia, and indeed the world. Looking at the devastation, it was hard to see if this small, close-knit community would survive. Nothing much was left.
But the town’s mayor at the time, Steve Jones, had a very different vision. “Everyone needs hope,” Steve said, as he spoke, within 24 hours of the disaster, of rebuilding. He would not, he said, let the people of Grantham ever go through this horror again.
Steve raised the idea of shifting the entire town up onto the hill behind Grantham’s original dwellings, which had been built on the flat valley floor, surrounded by creeks and prone to the occasional small-scale flood. To move people to higher ground would ensure their safety and enable them to keep their connections with the area and each other, something that was now more important than ever.
Steve convinced the state and federal governments to hand over $18 million for the council to purchase 1000ha of farmland above the old town and the Strengthening Grantham Project was born. The process wasn’t, however, straightforward and a recently released book, Rising from the Flood, by the environmental engineer on the project, Jamie Simmonds, is an insightful, and at times surprisingly amusing, read about the project.
Some residents left town, of course, unable to cope with the memories. Some chose to rebuild where they were. Many others took advantage of the land swap so they could sleep soundly at night and continue their country lifestyle within a community they loved. A community, after all, is the people, not the buildings they reside in.
TEN YEARS ON, I’ve come back to chat with some of the locals about their life now, and the road to recovery. I’m met with inspirational stories of strength, resilience and gratitude.
Grantham farmer Derek Schulz is out ploughing and fertilising the soil, and his workers are busy cutting a lush green field of lettuce. He was holidaying with his family on the Sunshine Coast when the flood hit and recalls watching the TV in horror when suddenly he saw an aerial shot of his house and farm.
“The chooks were sitting on the roof and we were like what the bloody hell are the chooks doing on the roof? They should be in their pen,” Derek says. “It was only then we realised this was not one of our normal floods. We knew water, but nothing like this. We couldn’t believe it. We just sat there and watched our house go under on the television.” These days he’s philosophical about the disaster but also still deeply emotionally affected by it. ►
vegetables continue to be harvested
on farmer Derek Schulz’s property in
Grantham, by Lockyer Creek.
“I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a time when it all seemed too much. After the flood we worked our butts off day after day, but it felt like we were getting nowhere. One day soon after the event I remember sitting there just tearing my hair out, not knowing what the heck we were going to do. We just couldn’t seem to get in front. I went to a meeting in town, and everyone was saying it was going to take time, but what time have we got? I felt defeated. I just couldn’t see through the mud.”
After the meeting he drove home and saw about 12 cars parked outside his house and wondered what was going on. “It was my Korean workers who’d been helping us pick shallots; they were inside the house with brooms and brushes, all scrubbing and cleaning,” Derek recalls. “That was a turning point for me. It made me realise we have to pick ourselves up and have a crack.”
He realised they needed him as much as he needed them. “They were depending on me for work and spurred me on. It brought a tear to my eye. So we got on: it took us months, but I got a crop of sugarloaf cabbage in the ground maybe seven or eight weeks afterwards. Premier Anna Bligh came in to cut the first cabbage.”
In the shed I’d found Derek’s workers huddled together sitting on upturned buckets, surrounded by mud but cleaning small containers of nuts and bolts. It was as if they didn’t know where to start. The task ahead was too overwhelming. But the roadmap to recovery needed to begin somewhere and on that shed floor they started with each other: they started small and collectively gained the strength and momentum needed to tackle the mammoth job ahead.
Today the farm looks lush and beautiful. Lettuce is being harvested, onions snipped, broccoli flourishing and lucerne watered. The land has healed, and the valley is again feeding people. Now, ironically, all they need is rain.
UNDER THE RAILWAY line up towards the Grantham School, I meet with Wilma Baukema, a lovely lady of Dutch origin, who during the 1980s lived in one of the only original buildings left in town, the Grantham Butter Factory. “One of the cold rooms was our bedroom,” she says.
Derek Schulz contemplates the massive
clean-up needed on his property
afteer the 2011 flood.
▲ After first coming together to support
each other after the tragic event, local
women continue to meet a decade later in
the old Grantham Butter Factory.
“We hung on there under the eave of the house for hours and hours. The helicopters couldn’t see us. There were bales of hay, dead cows, shipping containers and everything in your imagination sweeping past. The choppers were so close we even got smashed with dirty muddy water from the rotor blades, but still we weren’t seen.
“We couldn’t swim out into the current or we would be washed away. Eventually the choppers left, and when the current lessened we managed to walk ourselves out, hand in hand, towards Helidon.”
Wilma is meeting today at the town’s old butter factory with a group of local women who make up the Lockyer Ladies Social Network. First formed after the floods as a support group for women to share, talk and heal, the group still meets and has evolved into a social network, open to anyone who likes a cup of tea and a chat.
Today some of the ladies’ group have strewn plant cuttings around the table while others show off crafts. “People still come to tell their story,” Wilma says, “because everyone has a story.”
After the social meet ends, Wilma invites me to her beautiful new home on the hill where she relocated after her house was destroyed in the flood. Part of the Strengthening Grantham Project, her new abode has scenic views of the surrounding countryside and valley below.
“While I’m still healthy, this will always be my home,” she says. “After the flood, I always had a yearning to come back. It’s lovely here and I feel safe. I wouldn’t say I love the rain, but I’m happy when it rains.
DOWN ON THE main road through town, transport business owner Trevor McCraw chose not to relocate. “We were home on January 10th, cleaning up from the smaller flood that came through town the day before,” Trevor remembers.
is now The Floating Cafe, situated on
the main Gatton– Helidon road running
through town.
“At one stage a big gas cylinder from the pub hit the roller door and continued to bang off the steel posts under the house. I could smell gas all right. But you just go into survival mode. After a few hours I managed to swim back to our house that stayed on its stumps and water hadn’t come into the top storey.
“My wife had grabbed one of our steers by the ears and pulled it up through the floodwaters onto the house steps. Some of our other cows and calves also eventually came home. In fact, six weeks later, I found another one of my steers that floated probably 20km, way past Gatton. It’s these little things that keep you going. These little things really made a difference to us.”
Trevor, too, is very philosophical about the event, while still bearing deep emotional scars.
“As horrific as our situation was, Christchurch had an earthquake straight after us, taking more lives, and Japan a catastrophe after that, claiming more again,” he reflects. “No matter how bad you think things are, there is always someone worse off than you. We’ve certainly learnt things. We probably had a window when we could have got out, but didn’t. Next time we won’t take the risks.” He chose not to move up onto the hill afterwards because he feels that down on the main road is a good base for his business.
“Initially after the flood I got out of it all. My brain was fried,” he says. “I was trying to clean up and run a business with 10 trucks and 15 trailers, but I had just seen 30 years of my life, and everything I’d built up, flash away in front of me. I took a step back and sold all the trucks. People do need support straightaway, but the sooner people get back on their feet, the sooner people move on.
DOWN THE ROAD FROM Trevor, the local cafe and general store is back doing a roaring trade. The shop is a hub for all the meatworkers, vegetable pickers, tradespeople and other locals. I often see bus drivers stopping for a burger and there’s always a line-up for lunch. After the flood, the store was moved into a demountable donga but it’s now back in its original building.
Another historic building with a great survival tale is the original Singh’s store situated on the main Gatton–Helidon road. It took three years for it to reopen after local man Tony Wood eventually realised the importance of its renovation and the need to add new life to the town. Today it’s in the hands of new owners and operating as the aptly named The Floating Cafe. Painted purple, it matches the nearby jacaranda tree that saved its life. When the building was washed off its stumps in the flood, it became wedged up against that tree to wait out the horror.
Just over Sandy Creek bridge, Fran and Ken Arndt jumped into their ute on that terrible day and tried to rush to higher ground. “We were too late. This dirty big wave came and lifted the ute up like a cork,” Fran says. “The motor cut out, we couldn’t open the doors because of the force of the water, but in a stroke of luck the windows still went down. Well, mine went half down and we squeezed out just in time to see the ute disappear under the torrent. It was touch and go; I thought our number was up. The water was raging past, but we got to this skinny little tree, branches breaking, and climbed until we couldn’t go any higher.
▲ Having initially sold up his Grantham
based business after the 2011 flood,
Trevor McCraw is now “back into trucks”
and doing what he loves.
“Ken didn’t want to leave the quality of the soil down here on the flat,” she says, bringing out a newspaper clipping of her husband with a bunch of 273 bananas, grown on a plant in the silt between two sheds after the flood. “We love it here.”
GRANTHAM, IT SEEMS, has set an outstanding example of recovery after the devastation.
▲ Like so many long-term locals, Ken and Fran
Arndt managed to rebuild and continue
to enjoy life in Grantham.
“We were invited to Christchurch to talk about their earthquake recovery process, as well as to Japan to discuss their tsunami recovery process” says Jamie Simmonds, Steve’s righthand man. “The experience both Steve and I gained through the Grantham relocation helped to inspire people across the world. Steve always said that if you weren’t getting some black eyes, you weren’t doing it right. Were there problems? Yes. Did we always agree? No. But with a group of passionate people dedicated to a clear vision, we got through it together.”
Ten years on, the late Steve Jones would be enormously proud of his community, having walked the hard road, and paved a new, brighter, one. Importantly, the people of Grantham continue to live their lives happily within the community they all knew and loved and for the ones who couldn’t be with them to do it.
Today the house stands strong with flood-level markings drawn by my late father. My mother has enjoyed the past 10 years rebuilding a beautiful garden, but still often asks where is suchand- such? “Oh, that’s right. That got washed away inthe flood.”
Beauty on the brink
IT’S JUST AFTER lunchtime, the morning rains have finally cleared and the sun begins breaking through the clouds. Max Breckenridge, a captive release project officer with BirdLife Australia (BLA) is slowly walking along a dirt road that cuts through a patch of untouched spotted gum–ironbark forest in the Lower Hunter Valley in New South Wales.
Our new conservation superpower
There were expectations it would reveal much about the evolution of this continent’s largely unique mammal fauna, and it has. But to most scientists working in Australian wildlife conservation, it didn’t seem to have a lot of practical relevance.
Lifeblood of the nation
Below the modern Brewarrina Weir in north-western New South Wales, a 2km bend holds the remains of this ancient structure, a complex of dry-stone walls and a site of engineering brilliance. Displaying advanced knowledge of river hydrology and fish ecology, the traps were designed to catch Murray cod, golden and silver perch and other fish, but allow breeding stock to pass through.
When a city rises
THAT FEBRUARY 2011 earthquake, which struck during the city’s lunch hour, was the most destructive in a series. It was the one that broke so many of the Central Business District’s verticals and horizontals – its buildings and the roads, sewers, water and gas pipes. It was shallow and ferocious. Its peak vertical ground acceleration of 2.2G (more than twice the acceleration of gravity) momentarily lifted parts of Christchurch to the sort of face-distorting speeds astronauts experience when they ascend into space.
Conservation canine-style
IN 2004, THERE WAS no way David Williams, then an environmental science student at Deakin University, in Victoria, could have predicted the chain reaction a last-minute assignment submission would create. A paper he’d written outlined an environmental management plan that suggested using trained Maremma sheepdogs to protect little penguins from fox predation on Middle Island, off the coast of Warrnambool, in south-western Victoria.