Rising waters unite survivors of Black Saturday
AT 4am on Tuesday, Balgal Beach resident Kim Love woke to the sound of her deaf and blind dog Kevin licking water next to her bed.
Thinking the 16-year-old dog was misbehaving she got up to reprimand him but instead found herself in several centimetres of water.
More than 300mm of rain had fallen in the foothills above Rollingstone Creek and the watercourse and nearby Clements Creek had burst their banks putting about 20 homes under threat.
Panicked by the water rushing into her Armidale St home Mrs Love, who survived Victoria’s Black Saturday fires in 2009, called her husband Gavin who was trapped in Charters Towers by water over the Macrossan Bridge on the Burdekin River.
“The first thing I did was call my husband who was stuck by floods in Charters Towers as I was alone here with just my son Cameron and two dogs,” Mrs Love said.
“What went through my mind was holy s--t what the hell has happened?”
She then tried to call two friends without luck before turning to her neighbour Craig Bartrop for help.
“He came through the back with a torch and his gum boots and came and got us,” she said.
“I got a phone call at about 4am in the morning and I just bolted in through the back yard and rescued Kim, Cam and the two dogs and took them in to my home,” Mr Bartrop said.
“We had a dog each and some bags and we went next door to his place which was on high ground,” said Mrs Love.
“I was absolutely terrified but we had to wait to daylight to see what happened.”
Now neighbours in Balgal Beach, the two families lived only 4km apart near Melbourne but did not know each other and both went through the terrifying bushfires of Black Saturday whose 10-year anniversary was commemorated this week.
“During Black Saturday I had a lot of smoke, and water damage from fire trucks but we actually saved the house which is really good,” Mr Bartrop said.
“But we had neighbours with destroyed houses.”
The community had no warning about the flash flood except for the desperate effort by Rollingstone police officer-in-charge Sergeant Brad Gough.
“The only warning we got was the local police officer going up and down the street, I didn’t hear it, with his siren and there were other people tooting their horns,” Mrs Love said.
“I met Brad Gough out in the street at 4.30am in the morning and he was really good trying to make sure everyone was safe,” Mr Bartrop said.