I remember the tree roots.

They became a feature of my childhood. The exposed underbelly of a magnificent rain tree that was uprooted in Cyclone Winifred at my grandparents’ farm in Tully. The sprawling root system looked like a startled brown octopus that had landed in the wrong part of nature.

I remember walking alongside the thick trunk felled and the huge canopy lying limp next to my Nan and Grandad’s long driveway. As a child it seemed incomprehensible that something so strong could be pushed over by nature’s fury.

The fallen tree from Rebecca Levingston’s childhood home in Tully. (Pic: Supplied)

But that’s what happens in extreme weather events isn’t it?
You can’t comprehend how the strength of wind, water or fire can upend lives. Until it happens to you.

This week I’m reporting from on the road in Brisbane where much of the city has been dunked in brown sludge. Homes are soggy, people are shellshocked and sad. It’s been a scary time. The damage and the clean up seems overwhelming.

The skip bins are already overflowing. Inside a deep blue metal container that was full of muddy debris I noticed a child’s toy lion thrown on top. A beaming coloured smile that was a strange contrast to the broken cargo piling up.

Evidence of the deluge is everywhere, but also rapidly disappearing as walls and floors are scrubbed of silt.

All over South East Queensland there are people working to help each other. When kindness meets distress, the task ahead suddenly seems manageable. Thank goodness for the helpers.

Elliot the young musician who managed to get his drum kit out before the water rose to his roof was trying to pick through his sodden life. When I met him, his mate Aaron was helping salvage what he could. Rolling Stones memorabilia, David Bowie books, guitars and good times. Memories of his life before tragedy. We stood looking at the filth and stench while his friend quietly lifted dripping items out of the loungeroom.

“Yeah, I feel loved,” Elliot said to me.

It was a sudden moment of vulnerability that took us both by surprise I think. His emotions were raw and maybe he was reminding himself as much as he was telling me.

The damage bill will be record-breaking. Too soon to tell how the numbers will stack up. The emotional toll immeasurable.

 

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I called Gianluca whose piano playing video went viral. Classically trained, his final few notes before his house was completely inundated gave some surreal entertainment to a city preparing to drown. He hasn’t been able to get back to those keys yet. But he is safe.

Others haven’t been so fortunate. Lives have been lost. The trauma of past disasters become like a wound reopened.

I can hardly bear to take in what’s happening south of the border. Our friends further south will need helpers too.

The world seems hard to bear right now, doesn’t it?

In Queensland and New South Wales, watery catastrophe at the hands of mother nature.

On the opposite side of the world, the man-made devastation in Russia and Ukraine is unfathomable. War and millions of dollars on weapons seems inconceivable. Murderous. Madness.

So, how to find some sanity? Some calm. Sometimes it’s in the small moments.

My youngest son showing me a passionfruit that looked like a love heart today made me smile as I washed the mud off my feet.

Ricky the burly landscaper who bought his neighbour a coffee, quietly told him that it’s ok to cry.

The soccer club finding the balls that floated downstream. The pet who survived. The smudged family mementos that dry out.

The rainbow. The rebuild, the recovery.

The scars become the strength.

That fallen rain tree at my grandparents’ became a beautiful feature as you entered their property. They never moved it.
A reminder of that terrifying cyclonic night but proof that even when the world feels like it’s falling, you can carry on.