There is a first time for everything

And yesterday was a first for hubs and I.    We have lived in our house since 1975 and we have never been evacuated before (we were on standby to go many years ago for bushfires but it did not come to that) but last night we received this message on our phones and also on our landline.   This was the result of 3 days of non stop torrential rain and lashing winds from an east coast low which was hanging right over the coastline and not moving very far or fast.

We did have a few phone calls from family and friends advising us of what they had heard and on checking the SES website this is what I found

Residents affected should relocate personal possessions to a safe place. By 10:30PM, leave the high danger area and move to safety.

Once floodwater reaches 2.4m, the Pittwater Road will be cut. If you remain in the area after 10:30PM, you will be trapped without power, water and other essential services and it may be too dangerous to rescue you.

This flood will be higher than the 2016 flood of the Narrabeen Lagoon.

Where to go: Stay with family or friends outside of the flood area, if you are unable, an evacuation centre has been established at Mona Vale Memorial Hall, 1 Park St Mona
Vale and Cromer Community Centre, 150 Fisher Rd North, Cromer.

The concern was  extreme the high tide that was happening at 10.45 pm.   Fortunately we did have 4 different offers from family and friends to spend the night we them but the logistics of getting out of the area were quite tricky with 2 of the 3 exit roads cut with flood waters and the last exit road had trees and power lines down in certain areas that we would have needed to pass through.    So after grabbing our "box" of papers, wallets, phones, medications etc we headed off to the local RSL club which is 4 minutes away where we made ourselves very comfortable in the lounge chairs and watched our favourite tv shows on the VERY  big overhead screen and continued to watch the rain and wind lash around.

Around 1 am we thought it would be safe to venture out as it was over 2 hours past high tide and hopefully the roads would be safe to get through.     We arrived home to find that all was good with no water in the house or garden for which we were both very thankful.  

I know that we needed rain badly but perhaps not quite so much on one go.  The upside is that the dam received 9 months supply in those 3 days and some of the fires that have been burning for over 74 days are also out.

Time was spent in the garden this morning picking up quite a few branches that came down with the wind and sweeping up.   To look out the window now and see the sun shining and the garden cleaned up no one could image what the last 3 days were like.

 Back soon and in the meantime

 

Happy sewing all