Just in the nick of time ...

That could be for so many things ...


Here it is talking about a couple of things.

One:


I finished! My Wild and Crazy Ride through my 'oh so boring and a bit worse than average' set of 63,777 photos. I now have a grand total of 1163 five starred photos:

The 'nick of time part'? I had to keep taking breaks yesterday or I feared I would poke out my eyes with a fork so I wouldn't have to look at another of those blinkin' photos ....



Two:

Brisbane. Queensland. Toowoomba.


We have moved back to the states. Enough said.


We have been very saddened as the news unfolds about the damage an devastation that has and will continue to inundate our adopted beautiful city. I have been watching the news and can get very little info about what 'our' situation would have been had we still lived there. We would have been evacuated.

This morning the news said they are starting to pump out the underground garages full of sludge and water in the business district - which is where we lived - so the shed in the lowest (3rd underground) floor would have been filled (well, OK, is filled - just not with our stuff ....). I am assuming we would have moved all that to the apartment and the car would have been gone - with us - where ever that would be ...

Last night I found a photo of the river and our apartment taken from a place I often took photos - directly across the street from our church and temple:

The caption says the rescue workers are corralling some run away pontoons. But I have read that all sorts of stuff is floating down that river. It doesn't look too high - they said it was 3 feet lower than predictions - but obviously jumped the banks since all the high rise buildings you can see are the ones whose garages were flooded:

It says that 2100 streets in Brisbane are flooded. Gary heard that the floating part of our much beloved 'River Walk' floated away down the river yesterday. You can just barely see part of it under Story Bridge here on the left:

BUT. As I say - just in the nick of time. We feel bad, and wonder where we would have gone - the only other place we know about is the Marriott - across the street from our apartment and also in the evacuation zone. It may have been our first experience in an evacuation shelter if the hotels were full - or maybe some wonderful church soul would have taken pity on us (but as it is in a huge disaster - they would all be in the ... er .... same boat as it were ). Or! Maybe we would have just gone on a photo shoot somewhere - Gary's office buildings (he had 3 offices) were also in the evacuation zone so no work ... unless our church had something organized to help - they do that often in disasters (come to think of it - of course, they are busy doing something - the question is what) - then I would be taking photos of that and Gary would be doing all the work!

I feel very grateful for missing this whole 'Worst disaster in Queensland's history' ... ever. And I am saddened that our beautiful city is full of water and sludge. I am saddened for the people there and what they are going through - so nice to us - I feel as if all 'Brisbaners' are our friends. I pray for a quick recovery and that the rains will let up ...