‘There was nowhere left to escape’

GREG KOWALD was driving through the centre of Toowoomba when a terrifying, tsunami-like wall of water roared through the streets of the northeast Australian city.

Office windows exploded, cars careened into trees and bobbed in the churning brown water like corks. The deluge washed away bridges and sidewalks; people desperately clung to power poles to survive.

“The water was literally leaping, six or 10 feet into the air, through creeks and over bridges and into parks,” said Kowald, a 53-year-old musician. “There was nowhere left to escape, even if there had been warnings. There was just a sea of water about a kilometre wide.”