Flood day

The messages from SES started going off around 4am, saying that it was likely the Queanbeyan river was going to flood.
As I had to get up and make sure the kids were in childcare, I was not about to head off and do SES ops work and then try and get back on time to get them there but I was getting concerned.
Around the same time, torrential rain was still pouring outside. SMSed SES and said I'd be there by 0730

Got kids up and dropped at childcare and went to LHQ.
First tasked to retrieve unused vehicle from traffic control team, went past crane lifting demountable cabins from caravan park whilst street near river was already under water.
At this point, Queanbeyan was cut in half due to flooding on all roads from North/South of town.
(massive traffic jam in city center, luckily we were authorised to use emergency lights to clear a path)
Rang boss and advised of situation, approved to assist for day.
Then onto doorknocking residents homes and advising them of precautions to take plus evacuation center locations.
Then our team was doing resupply of teams in the field, breakfast, water, etc
Sandbagging after this, filling and delivering/installing.  (got to ride in a Army unimog, big vehicle, but they'd had a go at going through the flood waters, deepest water they'd been in since their driver training)
After lunch we were asked to respond to a potentially life threatening situation so drove up main road with lights and sirens as fast as possible, only to be stood down 1/2 way there.
(amazing the amount of vehicles that can't notice a truck with flashing blue/red lights & sirens in their rear view mirror plus the driver leaning on the horn)
Saw lots of water that day, lots of big logs/trees coming down river and lots of people doing some pretty silly things. (ignoring road blocks, trying to walk through flood waters, wanting to walk through sewerage contaminated flood waters, playing alongside flooding river banks, etc)
(there was one family that was advised by SES to leave, then told by police to evacuate and eventually had to be evacuated by floodboat due to their inaction. The floodboat team leader was not impressed at the fathers stupidity in risking the safety of their 6month old child who could not even fit into one of the lifejackets)

Stood down at 6pm, home for rest/sleep and likely to be out again the next day.