‘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.”

The high waters headed next to Australia’s third- largest city, Brisbane, where up to 9,000 homes were expected to be swamped. The Brisbane River overflowed its banks yesterday and officials warned that dozens of low-lying areas and parts of downtown could be inundated.

But nothing downstream was expected to be as fierce as the flash flood that struck Toowoomba on Monday. It was sparked by a freak storm — up to six inches fell in half an hour.

“There was water coming down everywhere in biblical proportions,” Toowoomba council member Joe Ramia said.

Ramia, 63, was driving downtown when the flash flood struck. He parked his car and dashed on foot for higher ground, keeping an eye on the carnage unfolding below. Cars transformed into scrap metal as they were flung into an elevated railway line, giant metal industrial bins tossed about as if made of paper, a man clinging desperately to a power pole as the relentless tide surged around him.

Ramia watched as a rescue official pushed through the water and yanked the man to safety. Others, including five children, were swept to their deaths.

“You were powerless to do a thing,” said Ramia. “While we can rebuild, you can’t replace people... I’ve never seen anything like this.”

The raging water was strong enough to rip houses off their foundations. Leroy Shephard, of Grantham town, east of Toowoomba, was in his home when the flood struck.

“You could feel the whole house just pop up off its stumps, turn around, and go — for a 100 meters or something down my backyard,” Shephard said.