It was a terrifying experience, with the river breaking its bank and causing huge flash flooding.
Sydney, NSW
My family and I spent three and a half years travelling around Australia between early 2021 and mid 2024, and during that time, we witnessed many climate-caused disasters, from droughts and bushfires to extreme storms, floods and cyclones. One of the worst disasters we experienced was the flood that followed Cyclone Jasper in Cairns. At the time, we were staying in Caravonica, one of the worst-impacted areas, and it was a terrifying experience, with the river breaking its bank and causing huge flash flooding. The clean-up afterwards took weeks and many people in the local community felt abandoned by the government. So many people lost everything they owned, many were uninsured, and so many people became (and remain) homeless – desperately trying to find accommodation in the midst of a severe rental crisis. During this time, I also heard many stories of illness and death that weren’t reported in the media, including the story of an 87 year old man who spent six weeks sleeping in his bathtub because he’d lost his electricity and his bath was the coolest place in his home to sleep; a woman who was found dead in her home three days after the flood; a man who was found dead in a boarding house 10 days after the flood; and a woman in her 40s who’d been cleaning her home out for a full week after the flood without any assistance, who dropped dead of a heart attack. Meanwhile, many remote Aboriginal communities further up the coast were completely cut off from the rest of the region and were among those who were most severely impacted by the flood and its ongoing aftermath.
This was just one climate-related disaster we experienced during our travels, but I have many more stories I could tell… the impacts of climate change are severe, getting worse, and impacting more and more Australians every day.
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I have reached 92 and had hoped that my final years would be spent doing the things I enjoy, but find that much of my spare time is spent on making submissions, signing petitions, researching the science on the Internet and writing to both Federal and State MPs and ministers.
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