As a historian, I spend many hours at the State Library of Queensland looking out the large glass panels gazing at the Brisbane River. Its tranquil brown water quietly meanders past, offering an ideal place to watch the CityCat ferries and the occasional passing rower.
But this weekend the water was roaring, racing past the library, full of pontoons, boats and debris. The river broke its banks, reclaiming its floodplain and inundating buildings in its path, until the flood peaked at 3.85 metres at the Brisbane gauge.
Maiwar (Turrbal name for the Brisbane River) has a long history of floods, as does the south end peninsula or Kurilpa, “place of the water rat”. This land, once full of waterholes, creeks and wetlands provided sustenance for Turrbal and Jagara peoples for centuries.
