Brace, Bunkers, Birthday

A photo taken by Adam Head in Townsville. Source: Courier Mail

Yasi is knocking at our door and I suspect we will wake to see more shocking images and devastation. How much can our tough, big, beautiful State take?!

I left for work this morning with a sinking, sick feeling in my stomach. I'm not sure why. We didn't watch the news this morning - subconsciously deliberately I think. I rang my brother from the car. He lives in Cairns. I was meant to be visiting them last week to meet my new little nephew. He was in the middle of packing up his vet clinic. Fortunately there were no pets that required overnight care. He had sent a dog that had knee reconstruction the day before home that morning (yes, dogs have knee reconstructions too) and was left with some wildlife which he packed up to take with him. He then went home and finished the last preparations to the house - turned off the electricity and water and packed up the chickens before joining his wife and her sister's family in Kuranda - which is further inland and shielded mildly from the coast by a small mountain range. He rang later in the day to let me know he had arrived safely and they were making plans to head to a friend's house - to use there bunker... a bunker! My brother rang again this afternoon to tell me that they would lose communication soon and we would likely not hear from them for a few days. This is serious. And I don't want to turn on the news tomorrow morning...

Tomorrow is my beautiful baby's 2nd birthday so we will open presents and take joy in watching her little cherub face light up opening her birthday gifts before taking her out on her new trike to breakfast and off to kindy with cup cakes for her class mates.

...and then we will turn on the news to see what this has done...