Day 95 in a Year of my Life

To follow on from yesterday's post ...

You can never understand the terror of a tornado until you experience it.  You watch them on the news and you imagine what it would be like, but reality is so much worse.

It was a terrible, terrible night and I relive it every time I close my eyes at night and every time I hear a loud noise.  The destruction and the randomness is horrific and I have no idea how some people survived getting tossed around in their caravan,  timber homes disintegrating and windows exploding, as well as all that debris flying around piercing roofs and walls.  I shake my head in disbelief.

I had a feeling that night before I went to bed and remember, I even blogged about it and how apprehensive I was about sleeping and what might happen if a tornado hit our town.  I get shivers!

The house two doors up is a raised timber home and 1/4 of the house is a covered verandah (HUGE!), well the tornado hit that and it just literally exploded.  It flew over the house that sits between theirs and ours, and landed on our garage (which is part of our house).  We had one third of their verandah pierce the roof of our garage, which then collapsed and landed on our brand new car, one third landed between our garage and the house next door, destroying the fence  and the other third landed in our backyard on top of the new campervan.

The ceiling of that deck was made with solid hard wood 10 inch timber beams, approx 15 feet long and they have been found all over town,  two of them in our garage, two in our back yard and one in the empty block next door beside our bedroom.  The rest are as far as 100 metres away.  

The main caravan park in town is decimated.  Caravans completely destroyed, trees ripped up or stripped bare and all along the foreshore, the homes (which are mostly little holiday homes and x-fishermen shacks) are damaged in some way, trees are gone or stripped or fallen and the path along the river has been partially washed away in the flooding tides.

You can easily follow the path of destruction and see the havoc that it wreaked.  The stories of close calls and near misses are amazing and we are all shaking our heads in disbelief that nobody was killed or even badly injured.  One dog died in the caravan park.

The sound of that tornado coming was like a freight train bearing down on us.  I have never felt so afraid in my life and as soon as I heard it, I threw myself out of bed and jumped in my walk-in wardrobe, cowering in the corner with my eyes squeezed shut and begging for it to be gone.  Thank goodness, it didn't last long, but for the moment that it was there - it's the longest moment ever.

We have extensive structural damage to the garage, some water damage inside the home and some roof damage, but I still consider us bloody lucky.  The rest of our home is structurally sound and we have moved back in - we spent one night at a friend's house who was away for the weekend at the Sunshine Coast.

The local community and the people from The Bay who came to help us were amazing and I am so heartened by their show of love and support and generosity.  

So many people in crisis, while others party on like nothing ever happened.  In some people, I am shocked and disappointed.

Adoring Husband is not coping well at all and has broken down many, many times .. especially when people jump in and help.  It concerns me that his life has been so devoid of such kindness that he can be affected so strongly by it.  If I disappear from his sight, he is calling my name and rushing to find me.  Post traumatic stress could be a big issue I think.

Anyway, that is my story.  We are alive and uninjured.  Somewhat traumatised but very very lucky.  We are fully insured and most things that we lost can be replaced - very very lucky.

There are many others in our town who have lost everything, were either uninsured, or their insurance didn't cover 'tornados' and they are left with nothing.

There are elderly people who went through the experience alone and scared and in accommodation less sound than ours.

There are people who had close calls and near misses and who are a lot more traumatised than us.

People who will need other accommodation for the months that it takes to rebuild or repair their home.

People who will now leave the area.

Our town looked like a war zone in the 48 hours following the event, but slowly it is being cleaned, cleared and repaired.  

We created giant piles of debris on our front footpaths and the trucks and machinery are in the process of taking it all away.

The Council workers, SES workers, police, fire fighters, local builders and electricians, volunteers, counsellors and everyone involved were simply brilliant.  

Considering the number of the disasters that are currently occurring along the Queensland coast, they have fixed our problems quickly and efficiently.  I have nothing but praise for all of them.

A couple of photos tonight showing our damage.  I will show a few photos each day to document this terrifying weather event.

The bottom line is ... we are OK!  THAT is what I am grateful for today :D

Nite all.