Floods and Dust Storms

#MentalHealthWeekWA

#mhw2021

#OnlyTogether

#DRRday

Today is International Disaster Risk Reduction Day. I am supporting the international community in implementing disaster risk reduction strategies to #reduce the #impact that a #disaster can have in our lives.

Can you remember a time when you or your family experienced disaster? Natural or manmade?

I can.

My early years (0-5) were quite eventful. My family cultivated mainly carrots and onions for the Adelaide markets. We grew tomatoes in glasshouses for selling and to make passata. We kept goats for milk and food. Chickens and pigeons too. There was an orchard, some grapes for wine and a small vegetable garden.

It was only eleven acres. But to a little girl that had to walk everywhere it seemed much bigger. The #Gawler River was close by. My big brother and I would play on the banks or swim if it was hot. Sometimes #flooding would occur along stretches of the river.

One year, a flood destroyed our crops and killed our livestock. I remember my father looking very worried one night. He was wearing a large wet weather jacket and #Wellington boots. #Wading, almost knee high, backwards and forwards from the house to our #truck, yelling instructions to my older brother and an uncle that lived with us.

All the while he was carrying things out of the house and repeating that we had to hurry or we wouldn’t be able to get #across the river. I was on the kitchen table where my mother had told me to sit and wait. Crying because I had been woken from my sleep and could see water slowly edging into the house and around the table.

My father grabbed me and carried me to the tray at the back of our truck. Shoving me into my mother’s waiting arms. I could see my brother and uncle were already there. I was #wet, very cold and still crying. The #wind was bitter cold and #rain pelted down. All I could hear was my mother #praying.

She had wrapped me up tightly in a blanket and was hunching over me, protecting me from the weather as best she could. On the back of an open tray truck. When I was older, I found out that we were on the back because it was open. In case we got caught by the #floodwater and #swept away.

It was much easier for my mother, brother and uncle to save me, and get themselves to #safety, if we didn’t have to get the truck door open first. My father made our #safety his priority.

Another #disaster I recall was in January,1968. We were all at home for some reason. Maybe for Christmas and New Year. Anyway, we were playing in the shed. It was a warm day so it was cooler than in our house.

Suddenly, my father came running and was forcing all the kids to get behind the big #shed. My mother was running too, carrying pillows and blankets. She threw them on the ground against the side of the shed. Calling to us to lie down and #cover our faces.

My father, when he re-appeared, was carrying tarpaulins. We were all made to lie down on the bedding and cover our heads. The #tarpaulins were carefully layered over the top of us. He ordered us not to move until they came back to fetch us.

A #dust #storm, or #sandstorm, had rolled in fast. It went on for what seemed hours. The sound was deafening. The layers of bedding and tarps felt heavy as I lay there in the dark. South Australia had been gripped in a #drought and the wind had lifted hundreds of tons of red #dust, carrying it southward, dumping it on us as it passed.

The oncoming dust cloud could be seen approaching for miles. My parents, working in the market garden, knowing what it was, rushed home to get us kids to safety. They had no time or warning to tether things down. We were in the safest place. According to my brother the shed had been built to withstand anything.

Afterwards, when surveyed our surroundings, we could see we had been lucky. Windows in the house had #shattered, a piece of #asbestos cladding had been ripped of the wall and vegetation ripped up. Anything that wasn’t tied down was long gone. My father told us that he was finding all sorts of things that didn’t belong to us for months.

In Australia, we are all too familiar with the #devastation and disruption that #natural #hazards such as #bushfires, #cyclones and #flooding can cause. Luckily, we have 'The National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework' that outlines a national and comprehensive approach to proactively reducing disaster risk, now and into the future.

The two photos are of the house and the shed on the market garden. Taken in 2017, on a visit to South Australia.