Alternative Media Group

Chasing the Storm

Author:

Lawrence Gibbons

Posted:

Thursday, 21 January 2010

As rising floodwaters threatened the town of Coonamble, six of us piled into a ‘94 Ford Falcon and drove west in our yank tank. On the same day that the state’s American born Premier, Kristina K Keneally made her second visit to the town in as many weeks, we drove to the remote rural outpost in northwest New South Wales

Locals call the river that runs through Coonamble “the upside down river” since it usually flows underground. The Castlereagh has only flooded the town twice in living memory – 36 years ago in 1971and 16 years before that in 1955. Just two years ago, on Christmas Eve 2007, the Castlereagh threatened to break its banks. Perhaps extreme weather events really are occurring more frequently. In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told the ABC: “When it comes to exceptional or extreme drought, exceptionally high temperatures, the historical assumption that this occurred once every 20 years has now been revised down to between every one and two years.”

One century after Dorothea Mackellar proclaimed her love for “a sunburnt country …of droughts and flooding rains”, Cyclone Lawrence battered down on Western Australia. A category five hurricane, the storm crossed over the Earth’s driest continent, filling our mythic inland seas with a precious, wet Christmas present. Months earlier, the outback delivered a stinging rebuke to climate change sceptics when Sydney was shrouded in red dust – blown in from the windswept, arid deserts.

Lawrence ushered in 2010 with a torrent of hot air. The cyclone that started in the Indian Ocean and blew straight across the desolate, red-hot heart of our continent was as ferocious as the hurricane that devastated New Orleans in 2005. By the time he was scheduled to reach Coonamble – on the other side of the continent – the Weather Bureau predicted the state’s northwest would be severely flooded. As the Castlereagh came perilously close to breaking its banks, the state’s latest leader, K K Keneally flew into Coonamble in the early days of 2010. Sworn into office in early December, a week after Americans celebrated Thanksgiving, it was her second trip as Premier to the flood-threatened town. As she stood over the rising, rushing river, KKK declared the region a disaster area. And we were on our way.

We were heading to Coonamble at the invitation of Michael and Colleen Graham, the town’s only local newspaper publishers. I first met Michael in 2007, at the inaugural National Association of Independent Publishers meeting in Melbourne. The organisation’s first and only conference was attended by a handful of Australia’s last remaining independent newspaper publishers, including Michael and myself who shared war stories over red wine. As the floodwaters threatened Coonamble, I remembered Michael’s drunken invitation to visit and arranged a carpool of four passengers and two dogs.

Michael had advised us that the only way into the town was the long way, from the west. As we left Gunnedah, ABC radio reported locals had been ordered to vacate their properties (Michael and Colleen defied the request and stood their ground). Keneally told the national broadcaster that the river’s flow through Coonamble was fast and ferocious. Michael advised us to ignore the reports, texting: “From what I’ve read, heard on the radio and seen on TV we should be 10 metres under water by now. Gotta love the media.”

As we drove west out of Coonabarabran, once brown dusty fields were transformed into vast verdant marshes. Wild flowers bloomed by the side of the road. Birds swarmed over pastoral wetlands and perched on once parched craggy old trees. The bright sun sparkled on the black tarmac, creating a mirage of flooded roadways that often turned out to be half-metre deep creeks that suddenly crossed the highway out of nowhere.

When we finally reached Coonamble, a helicopter swooped overhead and an ambulance raced past. Several children were feared drowned after swimming in the fast flowing river. As we stood on the levee, the mighty river dragged trees past us and our host Michael boasted that this year the region had experienced some of its best wheat harvests on record. The deluge that ushered in 2010 promised further prosperity, if the town wasn’t swept away first.

While newspapers worldwide have experienced substantial downturns, the Coonamble Times had a bumper year. The newspaper’s financial wellbeing follows the local economy’s fortunes. Founded in 1885, the paper is the only source for local news in a distant rural community where online information is as rare as a high-speed Internet connection. Michael, Colleen and only one other person write, design and publish a weekly community newspaper, operate a print shop for local small businesses and run the best local art gallery in town, which features Colleen’s colourful paintings – all out of a shop front in the middle of the town’s struggling high street. You’ve got to love entrepreneurs. The Coonamble Times had a good year and the newspaper’s proprietors took a much-needed holiday to Fiji – only to return to Lawrence’s wrath. For more than a week the heavens dumped water on the bone-dry earth and the Castlereagh threatened to break its banks, as the media reported over the usually drought-stricken news period between Christmas and New Year. Michael declared the river’s levees would be breached if the river rose to 5.5 metres. The river peaked just .2 metres short of disaster.

Information in a remote town is hard to come by, even for the local media. That night Oscar, Felix, Graham, Maire, John and I had accommodations an hour south in Gilgandra at a dog-friendly bed and breakfast. An hour before sunset, the highway was officially closed and we were unable to get information from the State Emergency Services. Though tempted by Michael’s offer to drink wine and collapse on his floor, we really did have reservations. Michael suggested we walk to the river and check the marker ourselves. At the bridge, the town’s mayor stood watch over the receding waters and a Channel 9 crew looked on, bored and disappointed. Beneath the bridge, Michael inspected the marker and announced the river had dropped below 5 metres, which meant the road south to Gilgandra would be passable.

Just past sunset we arrived at Anna’s Place, whose mission statement is to make every pet feel welcome. Oscar and Felix slept like dogs. That next morning over a hearty breakfast the hotel’s owner showed us pictures of the property in 1955 when the river broke its banks and flooded Gilgandra. Down river in Coonamble, Michael had also produced a back issue of The Times from 1955, which proclaimed Australia’s mythic inland sea had finally been discovered. On our way out of town, we stopped and inspected the Castlereagh. Within less than 24 hours, the water had receded to half its previous level. The mighty river slowly slithered down under the cracking earth, the serpent’s dry scales flaking under the fierce, southern sun.

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