Hello again reader, it’s me.
One thing that I love about having a crazy topsy turvy life is that everything that happens is grist for the mill!
I’ve lived on a sheep station, I’ve travelled and lived out west. I’ve been through bush fires, and floods. Each and every experience has given me an insight into how my characters might handle various situations.
After all, historical fiction or not, people are people and mostly people react emotionally to situations.
Recently we’ve had an unusual weather system hit and much of the area was crippled due to category 2 cyclone conditions, flash flooding and heavy rain. It hit close to home when my sister’s property was flooded.
Used with permission.
I have no idea how many horses, cattle, dogs, cats and other pets were lost in the flood waters. There were several deaths and many dangerous situations. These floods aren’t unusual in themselves, its just that the folk who live in town are less effected by the weather. This storm that lasted days, has impacted tens of thousands of homes and properties. Many of the effected were town dwellers, where water and power supplies were disrupted for days. Phone service was limited and staying in contact was difficult. This really hits home when you can’t contact people who may or may not be in danger.
In my current WIP (work in progress) I have my MC (main character) battling the elements as she takes on the responsibility of running her father’s property on the newly colonised Hunter River. There are fires, bushrangers, natives, and of course floods.
I’ve made use of 1830’s diaries and journals to get a sense of place and time, and have already written of a flood that decimated crops and livestock. Now, having been through this natural disaster, and experienced the devastation first hand I have more scope for my writing. The above is a picture of my husband (standing in the water) and my sister’s brother in law going by boat to “rescue” my brother in law and nephew from their stranded and water logged house; and taking hay to cattle on tiny islands of high ground and seeing floating dead cows, I have so much more to add to my story. A part of me feels that using this experience is a little off. Like ambulance chasing, but on the other hand, I hope this last week or so can add a depth of reality to my writing.
Sometimes a writer must delve into the darker side of life. We examine the hard stuff. Sometimes we write about the things that make us cry, and sometimes if feels like we can hardly express it.
I like to read the hard stuff, to delve into the real thing. When you read or write, do you like to go into the dark places? Do you like a story with the hardships laid out, or do you prefer a more romantic view of life?
paulabeavan 
Wow! Saw the “far away” pic on FB, but this really hits home. Poor cattle, and poor Mel and her family. We have lived through several hurricane force wind storms (a famous one in 1993 with 110 mph sustained with up to 130 mph gusts). We were out of power for 10 days and it got cold then, too. I certainly feel for you and am glad your whole family came out okay. Praying for those who didn’t.
I know what you are saying about using real life for our fiction. Sometimes things don’t change too much from what they were; or, we get something like your flood that show you what it could be like.
Be safe out there.
deb
Hi Deb, I’ve never experienced a hurricane, and don’t ever want to, they sound scary. The photos are from my other sister’s place, but I don’t think you met Gina. Mel like me, is a town dweller these days. I think the floods have been an interesting time for many who had to cope without water and power for almost a week.
No, I don’t think I met Gina. I’m sorry for her. Hope it didn’t get inside their house. nearly every year the rivers in WA State flood and cause untold misery. There was a flood a few years back (maybe five now) where the people are still trying to get their lives rebuilt. We don’t always need hurricanes (same as your tropical cyclones; we’re just “Up North and a little East” of you), just torrents of rain, usually coming from Hawaii or the S. China Sea. They are warm, very wet, very warm, and called “Pineapple Expresses. 4-6″ of rain in any 24 hour period is all it takes to flood the rivers in the Pacific Northwest. In Hawaii, we routinely got 10-16” of rain a day during the winter with minor flooding in the deeper valleys. Just goes to show how diverse our world is.
I do hope your sister is okay now. Sitting a block or so from the beach, our main worry is tsunamis. I think we are fairly safe, but you never know. It concerns my husband, but we haven’t had a really big event since 1962. I’m very glad my faith isn’t focused on this world.
Deb
Those Pineapple Expresses sound interesting. My sister and family are all back home, albeit neck deep in cleaning out the lower floor of their house, which was mostly a garage and rumpus room. Thankfully their living area is all upstairs and well above the 5 feet of water that filled the bottom half.
That’s a lot of water in the lower floor. We have a friend in Brisbane, who says his son’s house got flooded, too, and they are tearing out carpets. Expensive storms. I hope they can get it all repaired soon. Sometimes you wonder at these storms; they devastate some people and leave others alone. Hope this is your last cyclone for the season.
The Pineapple Expresses are usually in the Fall and Winter and nearly always arrive after we’ve had a really good freeze and snow in the mountains. They are warm (usually up in the 60sF) with just buckets of water and high winds. The weather guys say it is like having a fire hose pointed at the Pacific NW, and it really is. Then of course, we get the normal rains after that, but the ground is so wet already it can’t hold any more. Last February (2014), there was a devastating mudslide that wiped out an entire town and killed 50 people or so. They never did find all the bodies or the structures because the mud in some places was 30′ deep.
Today has turned out nice here, after a shower this morning. A light breeze (which means strong on the beach itself; we are behind the dune and back a block. A nearly perfect day. What are you experiencing? It’s getting winter there, is it not? Do you get snow in Hunter Valley?
It’s autumn here and the ground is soppy, out west is still in drought though, so typical Aussie conditions, flood one place, drought another and probably next thing will be bush fires. No, we don’t have snow where I live, though sometime we do in the nearby mountains. I’d love to experience playing in the snow for an hour or so, but that’s it, I don’t like being cold!
They are looking at drought all up and down the West Coast here, WA State to California, Arizona and New Mexico, maybe Wyoming and Colorado, too. There hasn’t been much rain this winter, and we got no snow in the mountains. The experts are predicting a bad forest fire season. I hope not. We usually get a lot of storms and wet here, but the winter was very mild and we got warm temperatures and lots of sunshine. I got to go barefoot all winter at the beach; lovely for me, but bad for conditions.