Living History

Summer Storms

In 1980 I was living in Brighton, a suburb of Brisbane, about two blocks back from the beachfront. We lived in a double story home. We were used to summer storms living in Queensland and watched from our back stairs one afternoon as a large storm rolled in. I remember the radio broadcasting warnings about a bad hail storm. The sky turned an eerie dark green colour. My husband went downstairs to check that all the windows and doors were securely closed. That’s when the storm hit.

I took the children into the upstairs bathroom and sheltered there under mattresses as the storm raged above us. My husband was trapped downstairs and we later learnt that he sheltered under our car for protection. All we could hear was glass smashing and the wind howling. The storm destroyed the whole top floor of our home. All the windows were blown in and our roof was blown off, but fortunately we were all unharmed.

The storm hit in only a small area. Our neighbour’s brick house suffered some damage and an old fibro house to the back of us was completely destroyed. My husband’s mother and brother, who lived in neighbouring suburbs, said that they barely felt any impact from the storm. The hail was so large that it was still in our yard the following morning when we began the task of cleaning up. Eventually we rebuilt the house and are still living in it today.

Vicki, Brisbane, Queensland

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