CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA DAY

The beginnings of 2013 had not been particularly auspicious. For those who believed in bad luck, these first days were the beginning of a whole year featuring bad luck related to the number 13.

On January 20, a low-pressure system in the far north, over the Gulf of Carpentaria, became a tropical cyclone and began dumping water down the east coast of Queensland. For the last couple of days before Australia Day, the weather had been pretty much rain, rain, and more rain. At my home in North Bundaberg, six adults were stuck inside, as well as my four-year-old daughter, Ruby. I had been working in the office, so it didn't really bother me so much.

It is also true that we are a large family and used to each other's company. So no one was really getting on anybody's nerves. Instead, the family was able to fill the time by cooking, cleaning, and watching television. Other family members dropped by, too. Everybody was pretty happy, considering nobody could get outside much because of the rain.

The rain was all a result of that tropical cyclone, which was now called Oswald. Oswald seemed to be the usual sort of cyclone; nothing special. As usual for a cyclone, it started up north and headed our way — south. We're used to expecting rain from these cyclones, and sometimes they come close enough that we get some big winds. Sometimes we have a flood.

There were many warnings, of course, on radio and television. But Bundaberg had its once-in-a-century flood two years previously, so I don't think anybody thought we should be seriously worried about Oswald.

We'd only had rain for a short time, and it didn't seem so heavy, but it was constant over several days. Everything felt damp. The heaviest rain, the news services told us, was out west, over towns like Gayndah and Mundubbera. That meant it was raining heavily in the catchment area of the Burnett River, which flows through Bundaberg. It also meant that while we hadn't had a heavy downpour of rain here, the river was filling up fast.

People didn't seem too worried, but I went to bed that night concerned. It was still raining outside, and I had a feeling I can't describe — a bad energy that I couldn't explain at the time.

The next morning, I woke up and learned the bad energy probably wasn't from the cyclone. I had other things to worry about.

I went down to the office, which is at the front of the house and quite a distance from where everybody had been sleeping. It was only because we slept some distance off, and because of the rain, perhaps, that it could have happened.

We'd been robbed!

I saw the office had been ransacked as soon as I opened the door. The room was a total mess.

That was a big surprise. I couldn't think. Someone had been in our house. I stood there for a moment, unable to do anything.

Then came the biggest surprise.

The thieves had actually stolen our safe. I couldn't see it anywhere.

What do you do when something like this happens?

I couldn't believe we'd been burgled. I didn't think of ringing the police straightaway. I was so shocked. I couldn't get my head around what happened.

There was a sense of it all being not quite real. Not as if it were unreal, like a dream, but perhaps as if it were happening to someone else. You see and hear about crime all the time on the news, but I could never believe that it could happen to me.

So I didn't call the police. Instead, I ran to tell my wife, Gina, who was still half asleep.

"Honey, we've been robbed," I said. I remember the look on her face. The surprise. Then the dawning shock that people had been in our home while we slept.

Only then did I think of the safety of the rest of the family and ran to tell them about the intruders. BM, Trinity, and Ruby had been sleeping nearby. Gem, my mother-in-law, and Uncle 7 were on the other side of the house.

At least everybody in the house was safe, but all of us — the whole family — were completely stunned. How could we not have heard anything? Not when they searched the office desk. Not even when they took the safe.

My wallet was gone. So was the rent money. They'd also taken Gem's and Gina's wallets. These items had been stored in the office drawers.

We had stored our passports in the safe, so they had disappeared with it. In total, someone had taken almost $10,000!

That's how the situation slowly became real to us all. Thinking about it now, it didn't really take long to come to grips with what happened, but time seemed to have slowed. Hours seemed to have passed after I first walked in that office door before I called triple zero.

This is where Cyclone Oswald began to trouble us. First, I was put on hold for quite a long time. When the call was finally answered, the woman I spoke with could only take down the details because no police were available. All the police were out preparing for the flood they believed was about to hit.

Instead of worrying about that, the family spent the whole day, Australia Day, playing detective, trying to track what had happened, maybe discover some suspects. But there wasn't a single footprint inside the house, which was odd considering it had rained all night. We had no luck.

Instead, we were completely distracted from what everybody else was worrying about.

There are no accidents in life. Everything happens for a reason, whether it is good or bad. If it's good, learn to be grateful for it, and if it's bad, learn to forgive. Understanding this gives me a new perspective on life, and I can have a more peaceful life.

GETTING READY FOR THE FLOOD

It rained even more heavily that night.

The next morning, we drove around a bit to get an idea of what was going on. Listening to the news and weather warnings can give you only so much information, and that is probably out of date by the time it's put on the air. We wanted to see for ourselves what was happening after the heavy rain. We wanted to know exactly how worried we should be. Trinity thought she might go back to her home at Bargara.

We drove towards the river only to find it was flooding again. (I say "again" because the river had flooded as recently as New Year's 2010–2011). We came to a place where people were dragging their caravans up to the side of the road. Gina asked if they needed help, but the caravan park manager had flood emergency plans in place, and they seemed sure they'd be all right.

To be honest, we thought nothing of the rain and the potential for flooding until we heard the State Emergency Service (SES) announcement that everybody should start preparing for another disaster, and everyone in the area might need to evacuate.

The SES couldn't tell us how high the river might peak, but the considered opinion of the SES and other emergency service channels was that it might reach 8.5 metres. The previous flood peak had been more than half a metre...