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Photo from the Sydney Morning Herald March 22, 2011 |
I work in Wollongong and live in Kiama, which means that to travel home I have to pass through Albion Park Rail. Big problem is Albion Park Rail had over 220mm of rain in nine hours on Monday and it was still raining late that night. Roads were closed, eight schools were evacuated, and the poor little souls were waiting at the local Fire Service for flood levels to drop. One man got too close to the floodwaters and was washed away. Trees were across the roads in several places and for some reason a butcher passing through Kangaroo Valley lost his load, leaving carcasses strewn over the bends on the road.
The railway line between Unanderra and Nowra had closed as the ballast for the lines had washed away in three different places. The Princes Highway was open, then closed, then open again, but so slow it wasn’t worth the trouble. Many other major roads were closed leaving people stranded. I ended up taking a train to Sydney, as the idea of hours to travel home and then go to Sydney anyway the next morning was a bit much. My heart nearly stopped when my train to Sydney stopped for a while because of a signal failure, but after an hour we were on the move again. It turned out that the road was closed the next morning, so if I had gone home I wouldn’t have been able to get to my meeting in Sydney the next day.
So I went to Sydney with only the clothes on my back and a two day stay ahead of me. Excuse to go shopping? My sister came to the rescue and washed my clothes at night and lent me other clothes. After being away from home five out of seven days the previous week, all I wanted was to be at home. But it wasn’t to be. Nothing serious to complain about, just a bit of inconvenience...
