THE sheer speed of rising floodwaters caught many property owners by surprise last week and for several the water came so fast the only option was to be evacuated by emergency helicopter.
Among them was Ba Mitchell at Cashel Vale south of Bollon, who was airlifted to safety from a tankstand last Friday afternoon after heavy rains turned the already swollen Wallam Creek into a vast torrent of rising water.
Mrs Mitchell's husband Stuart had been attempting to return to Cashel Vale from Brisbane on the same day and was trying to wind his way around floodwaters near Mungindi when he received a call from Mrs Mitchell informing him that emergency services wanted to fly out to evacuate her.
"I told her to go," Mr Mitchell said. "I figured if they were here it was time to go - it had to be serious."
Heavy falls exceeding 200mm across an already inundated Wallam Creek catchment combined with pouring rain at Cashel Vale to create an unprecedented flood on the property.
When Mrs Mitchell phoned her husband last Thursday afternoon the water had risen to the rear of a cottage near the homestead.
"Whenever it has come up before it has always been a bit steady like that; we thought it would be okay," Mr Mitchell said. "But it has never surged like this before, and by three o'clock in the morning it was under the house."
The Cashel Vale house is elevated on posts more than 10 feet above the ground, but by the next morning it was standing in more than six feet of rising water.
When news helicopters began hovering over the house later that day it provided further evidence to Mrs Mitchell that the situation was becoming increasingly serious.
"I understand that one of the news helicopters went back into St George and said you just have to do something about getting those people out, so that is when they rang her and said they were sending an SES helicopter out."
Mr Mitchell joked that his wife usually "gets dizzy when she lifts one foot of the ground" but said she passed her aerial winching initiation with flying colours.
"They lifted her off the tank stand. The guy came down on the winch and she came out through the window in the kitchen. They were very efficient.
"I said to her later, 'What did you see as you flew out? How far was the water out?' And she said, 'How would I know, I had my eyes shut the whole time'."
Last week's floods came during the best season that the Mitchells had experienced in their 20 years on Cashel Vale. The flooding submerged large areas at both ends of the property. There was so much water surrounding the homestead on Saturday when Mr Mitchell flew in by helicopter to inspect the damage that the closest dry landing spot he could find was more than a kilometre away.
Mr Mitchell spent several days worrying about the fate of a mob of sheep that were meant to have been trucked out last Monday but were unable to be moved because of wet weather. After flying back over the property as waters began to recede on Tuesday he was relieved to find that the vast majority of his stock seemed to have survived the floods.
"It was a fantastic result - I had lost a lot of sleep over it the last few days," Mr Mitchell said. "The last couple of days haven't been much fun, but it was a much better sight today. I felt a lot better when I got back."
Mr Mitchell expects losses of vehicles, motorbikes and plant that were completely submerged in sheds to be significant. He is also concerned about whether the house will have sustained structural damage.
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