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| Jessalyn Beaumont, her mother Sue and father Frank outside their flood-hit Enid Street home in Goodna yesterday. |
TINA Trost would sell up from Enid Street, Goodna, if she had half a chance and so would her friend, Sue, at No 3.
Yesterday, as the final report of the Queensland floods commission came down, they were dealing with life 14 months after a disaster that wrecked their street, their homes, traumatised the kids and left them wondering how they would ever get back to normal again.
For Mrs Trost, 39, it's the small things that grate most. With downstairs of their highset weatherboard home still to be fixed, she lives with husband Malcolm and their four children all a-jumble in the rebuilt upper level.
"It just doesn't feel homey anymore," Mrs Trost sighed, as she prepared for the 11-year-old twins, Annie and Abi, to arrive home from school with Thomas, 14, and Molly, 16.
"We got given some furniture and a few other things . . . and we're really grateful for them. It's just that it isn't the stuff you worked hard to get. It's not yours."
It's a good neighbourhood where the kids could wander from yard to yard without any bother and people got on.
Mrs Trost has lived in Enid Street since she was nine. Her parents used to be across the road, a few doors along from Sue and the Beaumont family.
Bad enough that they received only a few hours' warning of the churning flood on January 11 last year that engulfed every house in the street, some to the roofline.
Worse was to come when the insurance companies refused to pay. Her family, like many others, had general home and contents cover they thought would apply to flooding.
Their insurer begged to differ. "Just don't get me started," Mrs Trost said yesterday. "I try not to get angry because I know there are families who are worse off than ours. I stay tough because I don't want my my kids to see me fall apart."
The Beaumonts were in the same predicament - "completely let down", said Sue, 49. When she looks out from what's left of her front verandah, she can't see a house that wasn't hit by the flood.
She and husband Frank, 69, have had a particularly hard time since then. Their 19-year-old, Emma-Lee, has only just moved home to join 13-year-old Kaleb. But other sister Jessalyn, 17, can't bear the thought of returning to Enid Street. "She is too scared after what happened," Ms Beaumont said.
The personal toll has been heavy. "I lost my job as a cleaner because I had a breakdown, my family was split up because the kids had to go to other places and we've had all this damage to the house," she said.
"It's been a horrible time, especially for the kids. They had to stand there afterwards and watch everybody throw your life out into the street. It's got to do some damage."
Mr Beaumont said the insurer had turned down their claim on the basis the creek behind Enid Street didn't actually flood: it had merely "backed up", he was told, and that voided the cover.
To add insult to injury, the insurer wrote to him last month advising that in future he would have no such problems. The company had adopted new industry-wide guidelines standardising the definition of a flood, as it applied to coverage.
"Absolutely bloody woeful," said Mr Beaumont, who is now taking his case to the Financial Services Ombudsman.
"We've had very little assistance from the government, no assistance at all from the insurance company and if it hadn't been for the churches initially giving us a bit of a hand we would still be in struggle street."
His wife said she would love to sell up and start afresh, but how could they with the repair job only half done?
"I have lost my health and my job. Wouldn't you feel angry?" Mrs Beaumont asked.
"We just exist now and hope like hell that property values go up and we can find a way to get this place fixed and get out."
Her friend, Mrs Trost, reluctantly agreed. "I would rather not have come back at all after the flood," she said. "But there's a lot of people who are worse off . . . the poor plumber down the street has his place all gone . . . it's just boards and you look straight through it. He's living in a shed out the back."
www.TheAustralian.com.au
17.3.12
