A watery tale: Bundaberg floods

Everyone in Bundaberg turned into a flood photographer today. There were traffic jams all through town. Everyone was carrying their digital camera or phone. At first it was a bit of fun. We squelched through the park down to the edge of the bank. We went to the river and marvelled at the current and height along with everybody else with nothing to do (which it seems is most of the population of Bundaberg). Then we drove over to East Bundaberg which is low lying and when we get a lot of rain, always floods and always has. This information is valid because my mother lived some of her young life in a house at East Bundaberg and remembers the 1954 floods. It was there, wandering about with my new camera, that I started to feel like an intruder, a voyeur, a gawker. People have had to leave their houses and will have lost everything. This is the sad tale of all natural disasters, but as they stood out on the footpath watching the trail of amateur photographers traipse by their homes, I was struck by their dreadful situation, and all those all over the state and elsewhere who are going to spend weeks and perhaps months, trying to get back to normal. Nevertheless, here are just a few pictures.