Queensland Floods - Update on our family's situation

        Just an update on the flood situation with our family up in Queensland. My grandparents and uncle and aunty live in Goodna, and if you were following the news, it was one of Ipswich's worst hit suburbs with both of their houses completely submerged from the flood. Both families have returned to their properties.

        My aunty and uncle's house was found in shambles with the roof collapsed and walls knocked down. Another house had apparantly been uprooted and smashed up against their house. All posessions pretty much lost. The good news is that my aunty and uncle are covered by insurance so the house will be rebuilt and posessions eventually replaced. The claim process though will most likely take a while because of the the scale of the disaster and the cost of the loss is far greater than what they are covered for.

        My grandparents house however is not covered by insurance for flood but it is still intact, just in need of some major repair work and all their posessions have been lost too.

        It is just overwhelming to see all our friends and family offer their prayers and support and the influx of donations that have come in, in the form of money, food, electrical applicances, clothing etc. Our families here in Sydney have been stockpiling food and clothing and anything that we don't need and able to donate to them too.

        We have all been anxious sitting here without being able to physically do anything to help our family members in need but have heard that there is an abundance of help already with the clean up. An uncle and aunty, my dad and brother left this morning with everything that has been collected headed northbound to Queensland. That's a whole box trailer packed to the brim and the back of a 4WD full of bedding, clothing, personal hygiene items, food, medicine, cooking appliances, etc. everything that we pretty much take for granted everyday. The most urgent thing at the moment is food and medicine as there is massive short supply of these items.

        Our families have been on an absolute emotional roller coaster over the past week. My life was almost on hold for a while just waiting for news, every day, every moment. I spent most of my time at work trawling all the news websites, time at home was glued to all the rolling coverage of the flood. I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything else.

        Even though I knew our family had managed to evacuate and that their homes more than likely would be inundated I guess being able to see some kind of evidence of it would put myself at ease to know for sure what was going on rather than the uncertainty that was in the air while we just all waited.

       The news of my aunty's house being covered by insurance was the biggest relief though knowing that the burden on her and the rest of us too had been lifted. And also the overwheling help from all our friends and family here in Sydney has been a great help to all of us too. It will be tough while we all help them to rebuild their lives but I guess having insurance means less of a financial burden on our family.

        I guess this is our family's rainbow after the rain, the sunshine after the storm. Things could have been so much worse but I guess the main thing is that every single person is safe and no lives were lost in our family. We definately are some of the lucky ones.

        If you havn't done anything yet in terms of donations then I do urge you to make a donation to the Queensland Premier's Flood Relief Fund. Every little bit counts when there are just so many people in need. Thank you all of you again for your thoughts and prayers.

                                                                                                                   Love, Angie.