Down In The Flood

“Crash on the levee, mama,

Water’s gonna overflow,

Swamp’s gonna rise,

No boat’s gonna row…”

I’ve gotta say, it’s all quite surreal.

When the attention of the whole world is suddenly focused on your town, and you’re not hosting the Olympic Games, it can’t ever be good. The eyes of the world happen to be on Brisbane right now. And no, we’re not hosting the Olympics.

The city of Brisbane is under siege, bracing itself against floodwaters that continue to rise by the minute. Like most everyone else, I’m watching it all go under, on live TV.

Surreal, is, indeed, the right word.

You see, today, the sun is shining and the breezes are blowing, after many days of, sometimes, torrential rain. This morning, I walked to the store and apart from the usual post-downpour detritus on the footpath, it looked like any other day in Queensland.

Just a few kilometres away, however, neighbouring suburbs are completely under water. The dirty, though otherwise glorious, Brisbane River, is swollen, and flowing at speed. Pontoons, boats and barges have broken their moorings and been swept away, some, crashing into bridges along their route.

Even a floating restaurant broke free and drifted downstream. That the restaurant was named Drift is, merely, sad irony. It traveled under the force of the flow to a point easily visible from our office on Coronation Drive, near the recently constructed, Go-Between Bridge (named in honour of the city’s favourite cult-Rock band). Once it collided with the bridge, the floating restaurant crumbled to pieces as if it were made of matchsticks and balsa wood. We didn’t witness it first hand, of course. We couldn’t reach the office. A little further downstream, a walking-bridge also broke up and washed away.

Something like sixty suburbs are affected, being either under threat, or just under. To this point, mine not in their number. I can go outside, look around and see nothing of the tragedy unfolding all around me. And that’s why it seems so surreal.

We’ve been advised to stay off the roads unless we need to travel. Many roads are obviously cut by pockets of deep water and traffic lights, in many areas, are simply not operating. Of course, that hasn’t stopped the regiments of rubbernecks who are compelled to venture out anyway, to put their lives in possible danger and impede the efforts of emergency services, just to catch that “once in a lifetime” event on their iPhone cameras. Then, at the very bottom of the food chain, are the few, but inevitable, looters, who see nothing wrong in preying on the misery of others. They’re actually less popular than the water, right now.

Do I know anyone affected by this extraordinary act of nature? Sure I do. A friend and former radio colleague named Vanessa appeared on the TV news after being evacuated from her house. She remarked on how the community was pulling together and helping each other out. A tragedy may flush out the odd rat but, even more, it will also draw out the fundamental goodness in people. Many stories of heartbreak and true heroism are yet to emerge from all this.

A forecast peak of 5.5 metres is expected around 4 a.m. tomorrow, but Brisbane is simply the latest casualty of these floods, which now cover seventy-five percent of this very, very large state. The impact is also being felt further south, with the floods extending into northern New South Wales and even parts of Victoria.

People used to document events such as this one in song, like Charley Patton did with “High Water Everywhere”, about the great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Barbecue Bob recorded two songs about the event with, “Mississippi Hard Water Blues” and later, “Mississippi Low Levee Blues”. Another one about that same historic time was Memphis Minnie’s classic, “When The Levee Breaks”, released in 1929. Many years later, Randy Newman was even moved to write a tune about it called, “Louisiana 1927” and, completing the circle, was Bob Dylan, who paid homage to the original with, “High Water (For Charley Patton)”.  I wonder if anyone will write songs about this flood.

One of the greatest flood songs I know of is Bob Dylan’s, “Down In The Flood” (aka “Crash On The Levee”) but the song that comes into my head most often as I watch the ongoing TV coverage is, “Buckets Of Rain”. It’s not even about a flood, really. But the first few lines seem to sum it up for me right now.

“Buckets of rain,

Buckets of tears,

Got all them buckets,

Comin’ out of my ears.

Buckets of moonbeams, in my hand…”

In times such as this, people will look for comfort wherever they can find it.  I still look for it in music.

To all my friends in low places, my thoughts go out to you.