Well fairdinkum, it's 10 years since the Katherine floods (the big one) What a exciting time in my life lots of water to fish
I was one of the luckier ones. I didn't own a house and was staying in a mates caravan and only lost some clothes, my fishing gear and a stereo. Not like some others that lost the lot
The night before a heap of my mates went to my parents house that was out of town (16kms) and had a BBQ and a huge p..s up It rained that hard that we were all running and sliding on the grass with shirts off
The next day, after no sleep from the boozing we could not get back to town due to all the creeks up All the radio stations were talking about Katherine flooding and that night "horror movie right there on my tv" the news showed Woolies with 3+M of water through it
For the next 4 days my mates and me proceeded to eat my parents out of the house along with drinking all of the booze they had collected over the years, you know all the wines, port, rum and scotch bottles that sit on shelves like paintings for years
When we got to town it was a huge mess and the Army and all the volenteers did a great job cleaning up The irony was that what we really needed was some more rain to wash the place up
Back to work I went and helped clean up there
So 10yrs on the town goes on and I only hope it gets stronger and better with lots of rain but not the floods
10yrs Katherine Floods
- Dick
- Jedi Seadog
- Posts: 1776
- Joined: Sat Jul 22, 2006 1:41 pm
- Location: Kununurra WA
- Blinky
- Jedi Seadog
- Posts: 3309
- Joined: Mon Jul 03, 2006 10:18 am
- Location: Darwin. N.T.
- Contact:
I couldn't believe it was 10 years ago today.
We too were amongst the lucky ones, we were living out along Zimin Drive, which ended up being a small island with about half a dozen homes above the water. The water got to just short of our back verandah, I moved the boat out of the shed, loaded it with gear we may need and just waited for the water to engulf our home, I thank God it stopped rising. No food, no water, no electricity, no phone, mobile battery flat for about 5 days, all this with four little kids! Had to use the swimming pool water for washing and flushing the dunny! Once all the tucker had either gone off or been scoffed the remaining residents got together and had a meeting, it was decided to go up to a trucking company yard near the highway that was under about 4 ft of water and see if they were any trucks there with food onboard. A truck was found to be loaded with food, somehow (I can't remember how) it was moved to dry ground and the food was rationed out, it was all was good after that. As soon as the water had gone down enough a couple of Mates from Darwin pushed through with a Toyota full of essentials and a generator.
Once the water receded, the job of going from neighbour to neighbour assisting those who had lost everything began, it was a heart-wrenching, emotional time. Everything covered in thick, oozing, stinking mud, countless rats and snakes in the ceiling cavities of the homes that weren't completely submerged! There were houses down along Shadforth Lane that were completely covered under 10 metres or so of water. We had peoples belongings, whitegoods, gas bottles etc floating around my back paddock.
We sold up and left Katherine 6 months later, ironically, taking a job in Darwin that was advertised in a newspaper that was brought down by the two Mates who pushed through floodwaters with gear for us.
I normally not an emotional type of person, but listening to the ABC radio yesterday morning, brought back a lot of memories and damn near a tear to the eye.
We too were amongst the lucky ones, we were living out along Zimin Drive, which ended up being a small island with about half a dozen homes above the water. The water got to just short of our back verandah, I moved the boat out of the shed, loaded it with gear we may need and just waited for the water to engulf our home, I thank God it stopped rising. No food, no water, no electricity, no phone, mobile battery flat for about 5 days, all this with four little kids! Had to use the swimming pool water for washing and flushing the dunny! Once all the tucker had either gone off or been scoffed the remaining residents got together and had a meeting, it was decided to go up to a trucking company yard near the highway that was under about 4 ft of water and see if they were any trucks there with food onboard. A truck was found to be loaded with food, somehow (I can't remember how) it was moved to dry ground and the food was rationed out, it was all was good after that. As soon as the water had gone down enough a couple of Mates from Darwin pushed through with a Toyota full of essentials and a generator.
Once the water receded, the job of going from neighbour to neighbour assisting those who had lost everything began, it was a heart-wrenching, emotional time. Everything covered in thick, oozing, stinking mud, countless rats and snakes in the ceiling cavities of the homes that weren't completely submerged! There were houses down along Shadforth Lane that were completely covered under 10 metres or so of water. We had peoples belongings, whitegoods, gas bottles etc floating around my back paddock.
We sold up and left Katherine 6 months later, ironically, taking a job in Darwin that was advertised in a newspaper that was brought down by the two Mates who pushed through floodwaters with gear for us.
I normally not an emotional type of person, but listening to the ABC radio yesterday morning, brought back a lot of memories and damn near a tear to the eye.
Blinky
Find us on Facebook: Blinky's Lures
Find us on Facebook: Blinky's Lures
- 2rods
- Jedi Seadog
- Posts: 4918
- Joined: Sat Jul 08, 2006 10:38 am
- Location: Out fishing
10 years goes quick..... The wife and I were camping at douglas hot springs after a day of pig shooting down that way... middle of the night I said to her.... "stuff this..we are going to get stuck here soon if it keeps raining" so we packed what we had up and put the ute into 4wd and off we went...through about 3feet of water nearly all the way to the bitumen
Had to cross hays creek at 1mtr and flowing... but we got home OK... I was shocked at how much water came down the river and at what happen in good old Katherine.... We sent down what we could to try and help out
The flood a few years ago (the little one) I went down there with work to operate a fire truck for the clean up.... I don't know how the people managed to keep it all together
Had to cross hays creek at 1mtr and flowing... but we got home OK... I was shocked at how much water came down the river and at what happen in good old Katherine.... We sent down what we could to try and help out
The flood a few years ago (the little one) I went down there with work to operate a fire truck for the clean up.... I don't know how the people managed to keep it all together
2RODS
Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
If I can't be a good example, then I will just have to serve as a horrible warning...
As John Wayne once said:
"Life's tough......It's even tougher if you're stupid."
.........
-
- Similar Topics
- Replies
- Views
- Last post
-
- 1 Replies
- 684 Views
-
Last post by NinjaFish
-
- 1 Replies
- 414 Views
-
Last post by Matt Flynn
-
- 2 Replies
- 529 Views
-
Last post by Matt Flynn
-
- 3 Replies
- 312 Views
-
Last post by Toby61
-
- 3 Replies
- 1983 Views
-
Last post by Tightlines2