This communitys beautiful: Machans Beach residents band together after devastating floods |
North Queensland floods 2023 This article is more than 2 months old‘This community’s beautiful’: Machans Beach residents band together after devastating floods
This article is more than 2 months oldIt took a day for the authorities to get access after the flooding, but a mud-soaked army of volunteers had already emerged
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Judy Kitching fell into coordinating an evacuation centre by accident.
She runs the Machans Beach community hall, one of the very few public facilities in the small beachside town on the outskirts of Cairns.
The first night she was taking care of 25 people made homeless by the flood, the second night more than 50. It was packed but everyone had a bed, was fed and was safe.
“We had a family of little kids and brand new baby. We had a sick couple, we had probably five dogs in here. I know you’re not supposed to have dogs in an evacuation centre but this is Machans, what else are you supposed to do with your dogs?”
Kitching has been so busy she hasn’t been back to her house, which was completely destroyed. She has lived there since 1979.
The first time she was asked why, when she lost everything, she chooses to help others she spoke vaguely about insurance. But the second time she gave the real answer.
“Well, community. This community’s beautiful.”
Nobody needed to tell the residents of Machans Beach their neighbour needed help.
One local ran his generator for days so people could charge their phones and tell others they were still alive.
Another has spent three days and counting making sausages.
More than one restaurateur from Cairns arrived with a trailer full of food, cooked and given out for free.
It took a day for the authorities to get into Machans Beach after the catastrophic flooding triggered by ex-cyclone Jasper. By then, a mud army of hundreds of volunteers had spontaneously emerged, organised through Facebook and word-of-mouth.
If the community hall is the evacuation centre, Pauline Johnson’s house on Machans Road is the recovery facility. It received an upgraded internet connection to make it a wifi hub, making the property a community necessity.
Johnson and Helen Travers are coordinating everything from food deliveries to the rehoming of people. Most are staying in their neighbours’ spare bedrooms.
Johnson took it upon herself to take action, because her home was untouched by flooding.
“The water came to the house two houses up,” she said. “And I just said to [husband] Peter, we have been blessed. We need to get out and help the poor buggers down in Christensen Street.”
Johnson’s first task was walking through the ruined streets to do a door-to-door audit.
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“Honestly, it broke my heart,” she said.
She opened her doors to donations and volunteers. The driveway is now filled with donations, plus a barbecue that Peter has run 12 hours a day since Monday.
“Anyone that walks in, we just say, ‘How can we help?’
“And somebody walks in and says, ‘Can I help?’, [we say] ‘Yep, talk to this lady and help fix that’.
“I had a lady this morning that needed credit on her phone. And she was in tears. And I said, ‘How can I help you?’”
Nobody Guardian Australia spoke to had plans to leave Machans Beach. More than one said the community spirit after the floods made them more likely to stay, disaster or no disaster.
Eugene Orwell and his family of three are still living at the community hall, with nowhere else to go.
His single-storey home was in one of the worst-affected areas, on Christensen Street, Machans Beach. When they built it, the council didn’t require them to build on stilts despite an earlier flood in 1977.
“For the last 30 years we’re thinking about it, every wet season we are sitting on edge,” he said.
“It’s our fault in a way I guess, because we didn’t build high or because at the time nobody demanded us to build high.
“That’s life.”
The Orwells are planning to stay. Eugene says it’s just too beautiful to leave – if he can mitigate the risk next time.
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