TORRENTIAL RAIN AND MASSIVE FLOODING....

We hit an all time record with the amount of rain that fell within a 24 hour period in Rocky yesterday.... with over 350 ml falling.... But in the last 50 hours, we have had in excess of 600ml of rain... That is over 24 inches.  UNREAL...
This was what it was like outside our lounge room door yesterday...

The rain was just pelting down....

Our back yard was drenched... Trees were blowing in the wind....

 Every thing is wet...
Trees are down everywhere
Lots of houses without power
Homes without water
Roads washed out
Dramatic rescues
High Gusts recorded..
Roads all cut in and out of Rocky
Airport closed again....

Most of us didn't even get to work yesterday.
We were without power at home here for over 14 hours.... some folk still haven't got their power back on.  I think our saving grace was that we are on the same grid as the Mater Hospital down the road.....
You do not realize how dependent we are on power for everything we do.... no power, no phones, no internet yesterday wiped out a lot of things we were able to do...  We even had to sit in the dark until about 10pm last night.... It was nice all being home together though....
This is what caused our power blackout.  

A landmark now gone....

Right accross the road and onto the units on the other side of the road....

I tossed up whether to attempt going to work at all... If it were safe to do so we were to report to our closes school... which would have been ours... but the weather was too wild.... the Police were giving reports to stay off the roads and I just didn't think it was safe to venture out... So pleased I didn't as every street surrounding us had trees down on power-lines... Scarey stuff

Big photo share today as I record the devastation around town for my own records.
This flood was unlike any other we have had... Normally we have at least a week to 10 days notice of any flood we are about to experience.  This caught us all unawares and happened overnight....
We were told that we could expect about 300mls or rain but we had double that....
 The rain and winds had eased off somewhat by lunch time yesterday, so Chloe and Daina who by this stage had cabin fever, decided to go for a walk down to KFC to grab some lunch...
I got a photo call an hour or so later asking if I could pick them up as they didn't feel like walkig home...
This gave us a chance to inspect a little closer the damage done by the huge pine coming down ..
We noticed that several others were uprooted also, but the fence saved them from spilling out all over the road...

The damage in our Street...

 Anyway, as the rain had eased right off the girls wanted to go a little higher up the hill to get a good look at all the water laying around...
 Here are some snapshotsof around our neighbourhood.

Trees and power lines down in Agnes Street

Cnr Upper Dawson and Penlington Street. 

 The big tree in the photo above split in three ways,,, some falling on the road, some over the fence and the other part of the tree fell onto the house...  So so thankful that we cut our big gum tree down a couple of years ago now....
 We went for a bit of a drive up along Nathan Street and these are the views of the flood plains and some flooding along Gladstone Road...

Views looking out to the floodplains surrounding Rockhampton....

Lake Fitzroy taken from the top of Wiseman Street

 The main highway coming into Rockhampton was cut.... views of flood waters along Gladstone Road...

Gladstone Road... and the Rugby grounds....

 The river is right up too... already at 7.2 metres and rising,,,, and we haven't even got the water from upstream coming down yet....

A torrent of raging water

Beautiful parkland along the river bank all inundated with flood water....

Riverside park and Quay Stret

Houses at Depot Hill were affected by the floodwaters along with many animals....

Hones around Depot Hill

 Lots of our Parklands were affected too...
Photos of our favourite kids park on our side of town..
The wild wind tore the shade sails to shreds....

Kids playground...

More damage to playgrounds around Rockhampton.

Lion Creek Road and Jardine Park were like a huge lake... The Netball courts were all under water..

Netball Courts at Jardine Park

  Steve didn't have to go to work yesterday either, as two of their huge old trees along the oval fence line came down taking the power-lines with them....
These are photos of the SES and Ergon cleaning up the road and repairing the wires...

Clearing the road in Agnes Street outside the Grammar School

The views from the water tower up near the Grammar School

Rockhampton was just a sea of water///

 On their way home.  they drove via our beautiful Botanical Gardens and there were trees down there everywhere as well

Large brances snapped off

Pulls this tree out roots and all

Another one of the massive trees uprooted...

 Today I was able to save a few photos taken by others of some of the damage we have received here in Rocky....
 The girls had planned to do a road trip and go to Emerald this weekend.  Chloe took a couple of days holiday on annual leave and they were to have gone yesterday..
This morning they were thinking they might go tomorrow until we saw these photos...

Bridge near Stanwell over the Neerkol River

Neerkol River

An aerial shot of a wash out on the Leichardt Highway

Road washed out on the Leichardt Highway between Banana and Theodore

 These three photos above are another very good reason why you should never drive through flood waters as you never know what is beneath.....

Capricorn Highway near Gracemere

Gracemere

Gracemere

Gracemere

 Our roads are going to be a mess again.....
They still haven't been completely replaired from the 2011 floods, and in their already damaged state, they will be ten times worse for wear now....

Danaged roads -- makes going anywhere dangerous

 Even with flood waters down,  I really don't think I would want the girls to have to travel over roads like this in Chloe's little car.....
In Rocky itself,  it wasn't much better....

This is the state of Shield Street in the Frenchville area....  A raging torrent completely wiped out this street....

Not sure how the residents are going to be able to use this street

Shield Street in Rockhampton

Water raging down Shield Street

The approach into Rocky was cut by floodwaters

The round about coming into Rockhampton on Friday 25th January 2013

Taken 24 hours later on Australia Day....

Aerial shots of the water laying around Rocky....

Rockhampton Flood 2013

Rockkhampton Flood 2013

Rockhampton Flood 2013

Today the sun is trying to come out... We have seen to for a couple of minutes a couple of times today, but we are still experiencing rain showers... nothing like we have had though...
This low is still travelling south dumping bucket loads of rain along it's path....
It is rain that is much needed..... and for that I am thankful...
What I am not looking forward to though is the 40 degree days that are forecast for this week..
The heat along with all the water that is laying is round  is going to make the humidity unbearable next week... We are already feeling it today and it is not that hot yet....
And finally just for a little light heartedness....
Someone in Channel 7 needs to go back to school and study their geography.....

Not sure when Rockhampton moved north of Mackay......