Hundreds of willing hands. at first it felt like we were farting against thunder but we made a major difference. I cant calculate how many tons of crap we shifted, but it must have been in the tens of tons. A complete cross section of the community; from skinhead tattooed Johnnys, International students, pony tailed hotties & octogenarians handing out sausages in bread. Restores one's faith.
Time stamp 15:01 Start with an empty skip. Get 150 - 200 willing workers and mountains of detritus. Two load masters, I dubbed them Loud Mouth & Igor. You can see Igor in his white suit. No disrespect intended, Loud Mouth recognised a need for people to be guided so he climbed into the skip and directed the army of willing hands. "Right I want fridges & washing machines first. Couches, bring me couches. Now I want wheelie bins. Now I want mattresses..." Igor climbed in and said nothing, he left that to Loud Mouth. He just hauled & shoved & grunted & heaved. He worked harder than any man I've ever seen work. I shook his hand afternoon and he just said "It's what needed to be done.
Addendum; I just noticed Loud Mouth in this shot swinging the door open.
By 15:22, she's full as a fat girl's sock. The Bobcat operator said "There's no way I could have filled it that fast." The volunteers loaded all the bulk items, fridges, washing machines etc. The Bobcats topped off with buckets full of broken sheeting & mud.
This is the nice park out at Moggil that I and 300 other volunteers sat around in for 3 hours on Sunday morning.
Apparently BCC was overcome with volunteers and couldn't keep up with a flow of jobs to send us to. Must be hugely frustrating for those whose homes were submerged. Almost as frustrating as for the volunteers who wanted to get busy & get dirty.
Well timewasters that's it for now.
A great vignette of the clean up. "It's what needed to be done."
ReplyDeleteI was talking to people at work today down here in Sydney and to a person they were all wondering how to get up there and pitch in. Cash is handy and we do that but there's nothing like doing the physical stuff to really feel as if you're helping. Hats off to all of you. I just hope if turn comes we do as well.
DAM....wicked, yeah, I think i'm heading to Rochester on sunday to help clean up EX Brother in laws joint!. GOOD JOB..DAM GOOD JOB!
ReplyDeleteNicely done Nbob, by you and the bobette and her beau.
ReplyDeleteIf you are tempted to revisit a mud pit, and you're in my area (that big hill between the muddy people in West End and Fairfield) look me up if you want a bed for the night, or even just a shower, a feed, or a dip in the coldest pool in Brisbane before your trip home.
The lucky door prize is a free cat for the first 8 people through the door...