Well this is my families experience...
We came home late Friday night from our friends home after having a delicious dinner with them. We were all tucked into bed when the rains started, and they continued without stopping all through the morning and all day Saturday.
Come Sunday morning we thought the rain would stop but it didn't.
I have never experienced so much down pour for so long in my entire life, it was quite scary!
On our way to church on Sunday morning we quickly realized that this rain had brought quite a lot of destruction very quickly. We seen homes flooded, cars submerged in water up to the bonnet, fallen trees, overflowing rivers, closed roads...we couldn't believe it! We still thought the rain would stop, and hoped there would be no more damage to peoples property and the surrounding roads and area.
Nope, the rain continued, on and on and on, it was relentless!
After church we nervously drove to Oakdale (about a 25 minute drive from Camden) to catch up with some other friends of ours. We were nervous because it hadn't stopped raining but we thought it would soon stop and all would be fine.
As we drove to our friends house we soon noticed more flood damage, properties flooded, homes flooded and a few more roads closed. We arrived safely to our friends home and had a really lovely time catching up with them! When it was time to leave, we realized it was still pouring like mad and it was getting dark quickly!
We hoped and prayed for safety for us and everyone else.
It didn't take long to see that the flooding had worsened, more roads were closed, a small vehicle was stuck in knee deep flood waters and had to be towed out, it was madness, it was crazy, frantic, chaos. Every few minutes or so we would hear sirens from the SES, police, fire rescue, ambulance..it was quite scary.
As we approached the caravan park we noticed the Nepean river (which backs onto our caravan park) was rising, however the river seemed to have a long way to go before it overflowed, so we thought we'd be fine.
As we entered the caravan park we found the bottom level of the caravan park had been evacuated, a caravan even had to be towed out of the flood waters and it seemed that someones camper trailer was floating in the water amongst some other camping items, not good at all.
Soon after getting to bed the lovely staff from the caravan park called Shane and informed us that we were on flood alert but that we should be fine (first time in 20 years). We had a chat with neighbours, prayed and settled in to bed feeling tired and thinking all would be fine. As Shane drifted off to sleep I could hear a lot of noise outside and I woke him up so he could check what was happening...we had a chat with the neighbours and caravan park staff and most of us decided to start packing since the waters were rising rapidly. The SES was going to access the situation and let us know within 1/2 to 1 hour if we needed to evacuate the caravan park.
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| This is us just finished packing and getting ready to leave the caravan park... |
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| Everyone packing and getting ready to leave... |
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| Our overnight home at the netball centre carpark... |
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| Some fellow caravanners...their were about 15 or 20 caravans... |
We decided to do the smart thing and play it safe, we started to pack (basically threw everything into the car and caravan...it was a complete, muddy mess..YUCK), we are glad we decided to start packing because not too long after, we were notified by SES and the caravan park staff that we needed to evacuate the caravan park.
By this stage Elissa had already woken up around 1am and was helping us
with the packing. We had to wake Serena, my little darling got such a
fright and was so worried about the floods, it was hard to see her so
upset.
Finally at about 2am we were directed to go to the netball courts (a couple minutes down the road), the toilet blocks were opened for us and netball centre car park became a caravan park, there were heaps of us.
It didn't take long and everyone went to bed and tried to get some sleep.
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| This was a paddock... |
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| This was the back/lower level of the caravan park... |
The next morning we were told we wouldn't be able to return for a few days, maybe longer so we prepared ourselves to spend at least a few nights at the netball centre.
We went and checked out the damage at the caravan park. We were told the water had come all the way up to our site but was only ankle deep at our site.
We were told we had to wait for the water to recede and for the power and water quality to be checked and okayed before we could return.
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| This area was full of horses before it flooded... |
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| Again this is the back of the caravan park... |
Finally after many visits and phone calls back and forth to the caravan park, we got the phone call in the early evening and we were told we could return to the caravan park, YAY, YAY, YAY...Thank You GOD xo
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| This was the bridge to Camden town... |
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| Bridge and walking track under water...Can you see the huge fallen tree... |
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| Finally set up part of our home again...We are so glad to be cosy in bed, hoping for a goodnight sleep :-) |
I just want to add, I was truly touched by the love and kindness of so many people, people we barely know and people we didn't know at all. We had offers to sleep at peoples homes, we had people help us pack our caravan and pull down our annexe, pack our car and just give us a helping hand.
You know people are really, truly made in the image of God, even if we don't know it. The loving kindness in us, the self sacrificng hearts that we see in so many people, it's all from God, all good things come from Him after all, it's the way He made us and it is BEAUTIFUL...I Thank God for all His beautiful people, there are so many of them.
Thank you to EVERYONE who both helped us and offered to help us, we appreciate it, THANK YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH xo
Stay Safe,
Love Dimi xo
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