Cleaning Up Brisbane

As a church, City North has made an effort to get out into the flood effected communities and be a presence as we all work together to clean up Brisbane.

On Friday I went out to Chelmer (a suburb right on the south side of the Brisbane River) which had water up to 2m deep inundate the suburb.  We helped an older couple clean out there house.  We ripped out carpet, threw out dirty furniture and finished off by washing out the house with a high pressure gurney and disinfecting the floors.

I never though I would spent 90 minutes on a water gurney blasting the inside of a house.  It was a very surreal feeling.   The silt was pretty gross.  In fact the smell reminded me very much of the Serekunda Markets in The Gambia, and that was my least favourite smell in all of Africa!  Add to that the sound of generators running throughout the suburb and I had a very reminiscent moment about my African experience.

Outside, inside, everywhere was covered in a sticky mud.  Only the gurney could move it off the wooden floor after the ruined carpet had been removed.

However in a sense it was a really good day.  It felt great to help this couple, and they were amazed at how many people walked into their house to help, and how hard we worked.  A team went back on Saturday to help with the cleaning outside - unfortunately I couldn't make it.






The people of Brisbane have been rocked this week, but from what I saw in Chelmer, they will survive and move on.  Human spirit is amazing - maybe a little bit of a reflection of our creation in God's image.

More photos of the affected areas at http://www.flickr.com/photos/deanoqld/