Tears as kids lose toys
PILES upon piles of waterlogged furniture and rubbish now sit in the Flaherty’s Rosslea backyard.
Young father Adam Flaherty was yesterday clearing out the contents of the family’s rented Welsh St property near the raging Ross River.
“The way that I’m looking at it, it’s pretty much all gone,” he said.
All of their contents were uninsured, he said.
The young family with four children, three girls and a boy under six, managed to get out as floodwaters rose on Sunday.
“As I was leaving I was throwing sandbags, and it (the water) was deep,” he said.
“Being up high here, I didn’t think it was going to go through (the house).
“I was just stressed about the house the whole time and worrying about how much water was actually in (the house).” When waters receded they returned to “mud and just stuff everywhere”.
“There would have been just under knee height throughout the whole house,” he said.
He said the plan was to just get everything out as the house was not liveable.
He said they would “try and start again somewhere”.
Mr Flaherty said boxes of his children’s toys were destroyed.
“They’re (the children) all devastated,” he said.
“My oldest is six and she’s been crying every day.
“She didn’t really know what was really going on for the first day, Monday, and from Tuesday it sat into her.
“They’ve lost it all – toys, beds, clothes, everything.
“The whole lot, pretty much everything that’s here is gone.
“We went to Big W and bought them a $12 dolly each just so they had something.
“It wasn’t long (after) Christmas and they got all of that stuff but it’s all here floating around somewhere.”