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As they scroll through videos of Brisbane homes being flooded and losing power, Laurence Alexander and Gabrielle Caulfield feel they are probably better off than people living in houses. Their home is a 36-foot Catalina sloop called Rhino which, on Monday morning, is sheltering on the Brisbane River from ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred, as the storm continues to cause havoc across south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales.
Rhino, which they had planned to sail from Yamba in NSW to Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays, has its own generator, a gas stove and tanks that hold 300 litres of water.
“I’ve seen all these posts of people saying: ‘we’ve got no power and water is coming in’,” Alexander says. “Well, we have power and we’re floating”.
However, Alexander, a military veteran, is well aware the pair face a different set of dangers from most householders. For example, they are keeping a close eye on announcements about any water releases from the Wivenhoe and Somerset dams.
“The dams, and debris from the dams, that’s our biggest threat,” he says.
Rhino is tied to the New Farm Park river hub, a relatively new pontoon that doesn’t normally allow overnight moorings. It’s used by party boats, recreational fishers and jetskiers. But on Monday, it had become an impromptu marina for a flotilla of yachts.
Alexander says the hub is on a quiet bend of the river, sheltered from large logs and damaging flotsam by an upstream CityCat stop and offering easy access to land should they need to abandon ship.
Yachties look after one another, he says, and there is safety in numbers. But Caulfield says days of sheltering from rain, tuning to emergency warnings and being rocked by strong winds takes its toll.
“You’ve heard the term cabin fever?” she asks. “That’s definitely a thing”.
And it isn’t only people in boats who feel cooped up.
As drizzle falls on the adjoining riverside suburb of Teneriffe after a night of torrential rain and damaging winds, Diego Camelo is experiencing flashbacks. But he isn’t reliving the 2022 deluge when creeks flash-flooded and rivers burst, innundating tens of thousands of Brisbane homes.
Much of the city has been essentially shut down since Thursday amid warnings from authorities – first, about the then-category 2 cyclone and then about wind and flood water generated by the weather system. For Camelo, the isolation has generated the same stir crazy feelings he experienced during the Covid-19 lock downs.
“YouTube. Netflix. Talking on the phone … I’m getting anxious,” he says. “I hate it.
“The coffee shops here have been bustling every morning and I could tell everyone was having the same flashbacks to the lockdown. But worse, this is with rain”.
An industrial engineer from Colombia, Camelo unsuccessfuly tried to get into his office in Northgate on Monday morning. He got stuck in lines of traffic as cars were turned back from flooded roads; he tried different routes but met only flood water or police blocks. He even tried to get to a train station but he didn’t know if he would be able to get home by rail at the end of the day.
“I like my office … I spent almost an hour trying to get there this morning,” he says. “I don’t want to be in my place any more, mate”.
People living alone are feeling deprived of human interaction, but people at home with young children are just as desperate for a moment’s peace.
In nearby Gasworks Plaza, three mothers sit on a bench in front of the supermarket as their three youngest children swap sticker books, snacks and toys and run in circles around their weary carers.
Natasha has dropped her five-year-old at one of the few local schools that has opened, but with two-year-old Anna’s gymnastics class cancelled, the pair found themselves at a loose end. At school drop off they teamed up with another mum, Ashlinn, who can’t go to work because her three-year-old Frankie’s daycare centre is closed.
“We drove around looking for anywhere to go and ended up here,” Natasha says.
“We bought some Play-Doh from Woolworths and are just trying to make the best of it.”
The third mother, Laura, has her oldest child at school in Windsor, but young Hamish’s daycare is also closed, so she was forced to take the day off work.
“This is essentially day five for us,” she says with a stoic smile. “It’s starting to wear thin”.
Many small businesses are grateful to have – so far – dodged the worst of the weather.
Peter Bartlett, from Rosalie Village Pharmacy, has fortified his business against floods three times in the past decade.
Low-lying shops are typically the first to be flooded and he was expecting another tough morning.
But this time, it was different; storm water drains were cleared and emptied by this morning. Nobody was flooded.
“I’m pretty confident that we’re fine,” says Bartlett. “We’ve kept the sandbags there and we’ll reassess it, this afternoon. And I guess if we get a heap of rain, or if it’s a heap of rain forecast overnight, then we’ll just put it all back out.”
Many business owners in the area say they are relieved, rather than annoyed to have been made to close their doors.
Tony Frangos from See Drycleaners is waiting until Wednesday to remove an elaborate rampart of timber he nailed up and siliconed in to help protect his business.
“Putting it up was a pain, but getting it down should be hopefully easier,” he says.
