all three are very lucky to be alive
February 3, 2013
A Wilkesdale woman and her disabled daughter are lucky to be alive after a torrent swept through their home last Sunday.
They’re upset the South Burnett Regional Council didn’t warn them that Gordonbrook Dam was over the spillway and their house could be at risk.
The Stuart River, overflowing from the dam, suddenly rose without warning last Sunday morning.
“If it had happened at night, we’d be dead,” Dominique Bellonte told southburnett.com.au today.
And it’s only a miracle – ironically, a smoke detector – that saved them.
“It rained very little on Saturday,” Dominique said.
“I went to bed on Saturday night and I could hear it raining.
“At 6:00am and 7:00am the river was up a bit, and then by 8:00am it was at the gate.”
But Dominique was not worried. She has lived beside the Stuart River at Wilkesdale for 27 years, and it was not uncommon for the river to rise to the gate.
Even during the 2011 floods, it had only risen a tiny bit higher.
She also believed there was an arrangement in place whereby Council would contact her on her landline telephone if there was a problem with the dam.
“I called my son to tell him that the river was up but that we were all right,” she said.
“Then I made our breakfast.”
Dominique was on the internet and her daughter Leana, who has Down Syndrome, was watching television when suddenly the noise of an alarm went off in their home.
Dominique realised it was the smoke detector in Leana’s bedroom which had gone off. She decided to check the batteries but by chance as she was doing this she looked out the window … and saw the water was past the gate and rising.
“I dropped everything and told Leana to pack her stuff in a bag. I went over to the chook pen and let out the four chooks.
“Then I saw the metal tank that was damaged during the 2011 flood floating by, and I thought ‘That’s not a good sign!'”
While Dominique tried to grab a few things, Leana waited in the lounge room, still watching TV.
Then the TV suddenly went off …
“I thought okay it’s going too fast. I grabbed a sleeping bag and two mattresses I had for camping, and some towels and a pair of jeans.
“I then drove Leana and Mehiel (the family’s pet dog) up the hill.”
Dominique left them up the hill and went back to try to get more items out of the house.
“The water was flowing on the verandah, racing very hard. It took me a long time to open the door,” she said.
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Dominique put Leana’s medical files into a second car, and then located her insurance papers, and more towels. She then tried to lift things as high as she could throughout the house.
“By the time I left the water was up to my hips,” she said.
In fact, the water tore the slacks she was wearing.
“The mud is so strong it ripped the cloth. Whatever was in the water was so damaging,” she said.
Dominique went back to the house on Monday while the water was still flowing. and then back again with an insurance assessor yesterday.
“I don’t even recognise it myself,” she said.
“All the cupboards are empty. There are still clothes in the washing machine but they are full of mud.”
A rock bread oven where the family used to make pizza was squashed flat. She found a whipper snipper near the river …
“I bought a painting ‘Dog Waiting’ at the Disability Art Show that I was going to donate to SB Care. It has disappeared. Maybe someone will find it somewhere. I will have to tell SB Care that I don’t have it anymore.”
And sadly, there’s no sign of her four chooks either.
Her garden is destroyed … 75 olive trees flattened; grapes, citrus and apricot trees gone. A tree planted when Leana was a baby uprooted.
Unfortunately the second car, which she had not been able to move, was also full of mud.
Dominique still doesn’t understand why that smoke detector which saved their lives suddenly went off …
“There was no smoke it the house and that’s the first time it’s done that and we’ve had it for 10 years.”
And there’s another miracle, too. She was upset when she realised that a cross, a ring from her late mother and a ring from her late grandmother had been washed away.
“But when I came back on Monday, I found the two rings and cross on the front of the step on the verandah. Isn’t that incredible?”
Dominique has insurance and temporary accommodation has been organised for her and her daughter.
But she doesn’t know whether she wants to rebuild at Wilkesdale.
“I feel too stressed to make a decision,” she said.
“I feel it’s like a book that you’ve read. You shut the book and put it on the shelf and you have the memories of the book.”
NB. southburnett.com.au was repeatedly assured by Council representatives during the flood crisis that downstream residents of Gordonbrook Dam were safe even though the Disaster Plan had been activated; that if the level of water over the spillway reached 2.5m the next stage of the plan would be put into effect. However the water level only ever reached 2.3m. Members of the South Burnett Disaster Management Group that we spoke to on Saturday were not aware of Mrs Bellonte’s plight.
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[Photos: Dominique Bellonte, Graham Sutherland and southburnett.com.au]
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