by Matt J. Pike
Then we started hearing reports about Melbourne – that the massive rock that bulked past us had landed near there. Real close. No one was hearing anything from any Melbourne media outlet – signals had died. And the potential for bad news was high. Just the thought of Australia’s second largest city getting hit was scary.
That’s when things got really fricken’ real.
That’s when some guests start wailing, some were consoling each other, there were kids clinging on to parents for dear life, other people just stood or sat in stunned silence. Some started manically working their phones – presumably trying to contact people in Melbs. I don’t think they had much luck – the phones were all but dead most of the night. Some, like me, just watched the TV.
The Melbourne angle was getting some weight behind it. We started hearing some reports about a more specific impact site – near Frankston on the Mornington Peninsula. I’m pretty sure that’s an outer suburb of Melbourne – and if was the rock that we saw floating through the sky earlier – then Melbourne looks like it’s pretty much screwed. Wow. Melbourne. MCG Melbourne. Footy Melbourne. Wow.
It is hard to recall exact times between events on the night but it was several minutes before the shockwaves hit – that could be 7, could be 15 – I’m just not sure. But when it hit, it hit. There was like this subtle little breeze hitting from the Adelaide plains all night but it started getting stronger and fast. When standing upright became a noticeable challenge that’s when the noise began. It started building beyond the hills behind us – louder and louder. Seriously loud. Then louder again – jet engine loud. Then an explosion of wind and debris and rocks and trees came barrelling over the lip of the hills.
This shockwave – presumably from the Melbourne impact – turned into a cocktail of lethal floating objects that just hit the top of Mount Lofty and kept going up and out. It launched objects high in the sky above us – further propelled by the vicious sea breeze that’d swept off the plains. I’ve got a feeling we got very lucky here – no debris seemed to rain down on us – it pushed over our heads on to the plains below. It was kinda like we were standing at the peak of a giant breaking wind wave (breaking wind wave – that’s a bit awkward). Like we were in an air pipeline or something, just in the perfect part of the barrel that held its shape just long enough to protect our arses.
It was surreal. The wind hitting us from city side was strong but tolerable, while overhead this crazy blast of energy pushed all sorts of objects well over our heads and onto the city below. I saw a couple of cars go overhead and that was enough for me to head inside. I pushed my face up to the lounge room window and continued watching. I kept an eye on my house as I had a distant view of it from the Jamesons’. It seemed OK, for now.
The shockwave probably unloaded for a few minutes but it slowly subsided after the initial front. The TVs had gone dead – just showing static. But as the winds calmed, panic set in. Mr Jameson called for everyone to calm down and he started getting everyone involved in making a plan of action. It was short-lived though. As soon as he got everyone in a more positive frame of mind there was another big explosion outside. It was distant, but large, the house shook with its force. Again attention turned to the view of the city below. A huge fireball leaped out from the Parkside area. Then, as everyone was trying to work out what could’ve caused it, a fiery ball rock or something about the size of a truck came into view from over the hills and buried itself beyond the city in the western suburbs, then another one from the same direction hit out Salisbury way in the north.
A smaller fireball – not sure what to call those things – landed a couple of suburbs away to our left. It took out a couple of houses before something exploded – presumably a gas line or something. I swear I felt a wave of heat. There were more fireballs that could be seen off in the distance. I figured all this was emanating from the Melbourne impact, which didn’t bode well for anyone closer than us – 800km!
I got distracted so much by the light show and taking a few pics, I nearly missed the really bad news.
Someone pointed out the sea was receding. Fast. With the conditions that night the water just looked like a black slick, with the moonlight dancing off the distant waves – now all partly obscured by the dust of the shockwave. I hardly noticed ... until there was no moonlight glimmering at all. The water drew out of the area fast – real fast. That could only mean one thing – tsunami. Now, I know enough about geography to know that lil old Adelaide, hidden as it is up St Vincent’s Gulf had no direct line of sight with either Melbourne or the Bay of Bangal – there was hundreds of kilometres of water separating us from the Southern Ocean. I’m not sure if there was another impact spot or the world’s seas had been distorted so much by the impacts the whole thing was going crazy like a giant washing machine. Either way it wasn’t good.
That was the moment I remember thinking there’s no chance I would survive. It just seemed every few minutes another disaster played out in front of me. I’d be scared stiff, braced for the worst, watch the horror unfold, survive, start to adjust to what I’d seen – then something else bigger and badder would happen. I mean, what next?
I don’t think I was the only one hurting either, no one spoke – we just consoled and braced for more pain.
The gulf looked nearly drained from our distant view in the foothills. I felt for those beachside – something big was coming and there was no way to get out of its path now. I’m not sure if this was the case earlier but I noticed the cars backed up on both Anzac Highway and Port Road – obviously the word was out to GTFO.
Then I saw the wall of water. It came in fast. ‘Wall’ probably doesn’t cut it for a description, but I can’t think of any other way to describe it. All I know is when it hit the shoreline I was looking at Glenelg – the only real beachfront buildings of any decent size are at Glenelg. And the wave just swallowed them all. It ate them and kept going.
I’ll never forget the screams from the people around me at that moment. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to describe them properly either, but there was something in the tone of peoples’ wailing that changed from an ‘against all hope’ scream to a ‘there is no hope’ scream.
It was horrible to watch but I couldn’t look away. The wave rolled through the west from the south, over Marion Shopping Centre, past the airport, up Anzac Highway, across Port Road, further and further in until it hit the parklands. And it didn’t stop there – it just kept on rolling straight into the heart of the city. It was only then I started to realise my house was in jeopardy. This was not part of my survival plan, which required my house and all the things I’d collected in my house to survive with. If the wave got as far east as Trinity Gardens I was screwed.
I saw a couple of buildings collapse in the CBD, along with the light towers and one of the grandstands at Adelaide Oval – definitely won’t be seeing the Crows play this weekend :S When it hit Fullarton Road my heart was out of control. I think I actually held my hands together and started praying. I think I remember saying ‘please, no, please, please, no’ over and over again.
Most of the people at the party were from the eastside – we were all praying for the same result. The wave’s momentum seemed to slow once it hit Fullarton Road. Someone pointed out that the incline increases east of the city as you head towards the foothills. And it was true – no sooner had the water hit the bottom of the Parade at Norwood it peaked and slowly started withdrawing back towards the beach.
‘Here comes another one’ someone said. I swore.
The first wave had probably rolled back to the airport when the second rolled over the top. It was hard to tell if it was bigger than the first one or not. It reached the Parade again, this time pushing up as far as Osmond Terrace before falling back. I breathed hard and thanked whomever I was praying to as that was only a few blocks from Portrush Road – and only a few more from my house.
Another random fireball ploughed into the retreating water. Watching the fireballs didn’t have the s
ame impact anymore – whoever lived where that thing landed was dead already.
There was a bit of a mixed bag with the rest of the waves – the next few fell well short of the eastern suburbs before a couple more massive ones rolled right up to the foot of the Parade again. Once they retreated, the worst was done – the high watermark was set.
New Adelaide took shape in front of us. The west utterly destroyed; the north plains similar; southern plains gone too – not sure about the fate of those the other side on the hills down south. But for those in the Adelaide hills behind us, and judging by the force of the blast that sailed over our heads earlier there’d be little to nothing left. All that remained liveable – at least by the looks of it – was a crescent shaped band of suburbs in the shadows of the hills.
We just happened to be in the right place – far enough from the sea not to be affected by the tsunami, close enough to the hills to be shielded from the blast winds and lucky enough not to be dive-bombed by comet fragments or fireballs or cars or trees or God knows what else.
I looked at the snowy TVs, hoping their signal would come back so I could find out what was going on. Mr Jameson was trying to find a radio signal without luck. I tried my phone – no signal, no internet. Instead I went and grabbed another beer and stared at new Adelaide.
****
Saturday, April 13, 2014
7.15am: I woke up to the first day of the rest of my life. Sure, I could define every day as that, but this one really was. The little moment where I woke up and thought maybe the whole global disaster thing might turn out to be a bizarre dream… it didn’t happen. Nothing would ever be the same again. It was pretty quiet at the Jamesons’, most of the party-goers left last night to find out what had happened to their homes. I was going to do the same but decided to stay. Without any access to a TV signal or internet, the thought of being able to see the devastation from the Jamesons’ awesome vantage point would help me get a picture for my next move.
Mrs Jameson, Jodie, cooked up pancakes on the BBQ for the dozen or so people who still remained. They were beautiful (maybe a little fluffy for my tastes) but they went down a treat.
I sat out on the balcony with Mr Jameson, Mr Eldridge – who lived with his family in the beautiful but now destroyed suburb, of North Adelaide – and a few of the other kids. I was not entirely sure what reaction I was expecting from Mr Eldridge, but I was surprised he was quite upbeat. Turns out they thought long and hard about staying at home last night and the decision to come saved their lives. So losing their house has some serious perspective I s’pose. I can’t help but project forward as to what will happen to them. Without a house, without resources and shelter things don’t look good.
Maybe the Jamesons would take them in. Maybe. I’m not sure how much food and resources they have for themselves, let alone an entire other family. It’s hard to know how far friendship will stretch in a time like this.
But that wasn’t really my concern and, judging by the conversation, it wasn’t front-of-mind for Mr Eldridge either. We just looked at the utter chaos that was the Adelaide plains in front of us and tried to work out what it all meant.
There was a fire virtually everywhere you looked. The city centre was alight in various spots – and there was no evidence of anyone fighting the blazes. It looked like most of the tall buildings survived the tsunami, although most of the residential housing areas around Hutt St/South Terrace way looked like they’d been levelled.
The same could be said of anything in line with, or west of, the CBD – totally destroyed. Gone. Same with the north as far as the eye could see. We talked about the possible toll from Adelaide alone and came to the conclusion that possibly four out of every five people no longer had a home (assuming they were still alive) – that’s about 800,000 people! It made me want to get back home as soon as possible – despite Mr Jameson insisting I stay.
We started talking about people we knew who lived in the affected areas but it got a bit too much and we stopped. Then we tried to guess global tolls – again, that was too overwhelming, to consider.
But from the moment I got the idea in my head about home, nothing was gonna stop me. Again, Mr J tried to talk me out of it, but I declined. I managed to leave under the agreement I would hang something red from the chimney when I got home so he could see I was OK.
11.30am: I’m so glad I used my bike to get to the Jamesons’ last night, there’s no way I would’ve gotten my car back home. The roads were covered with all sorts of debris and the ones that were clear enough to at least drive a car down (most weren’t) had so much junk on them I’d have had four flat tyres before I got out of second gear. It didn’t take my bike long to get punctures in both tyres. I resorted to carrying the thing on my back rather than trying to repair the damage very early on – thank God it’s light. It was probably only 3km from start to finish but it took me the better part of an hour.
There were plenty of people out and about inspecting property damage. I got a few nods of acknowledgement but no one was saying ‘hi’. Maybe they could sense how pissed off I was carrying my bike. I did see a few people up on their roofs too – either checking for damage or getting a better view of the surrounding area. Some of them must have very little idea of the devastation. They didn’t get the view I did and all of the TV and radio transmitters got blown away by the Melbourne shockwave. So they’d have no idea about the tsunami here, or even the fireballs (actually that name is starting to sound like a genital disease, I think I’ll have to come up with something better).
So I don’t know if that makes me lucky or not. I tried my phone again and still nothing – I really hope not working isn’t a permanent new feature.
I nearly cried when I got home and saw the place was still standing. You kinda just take your house for granted usually – not today though. Today it represented my chance to survive this mess. If my home was gone, so was I.
All-in-all the place was looking pretty good, although it was covered in dirt and small bits of debris. No broken windows or anything like that, so can’t complain. And, to be fair, when some houses lay flattened at the bottom of an impact crater, others are probably 2km from their foundations (thanks to the tsunami) and more are on fire, then complaining about anything I face here seems a little petty.
The one scary site was the hub cap buried into the Jacaranda tree on the median strip out the front. That thing must’ve been travelling at some speed to find its way 10cm deep into the trunk.
1.30pm: Power, I have power! And it’s not the generator either. When I opened the door and flicked the lights on, I did a little happy power dance!
Just made myself some toasties for lunch and flicked through the pics I took last night and this morning on my phone. I’ve uploaded the JPGs to my laptop so I can see them at a larger size. It’s unbelievable. There’s so much about the scale of what was going on in front of me last night I didn’t fully take in. I mean some of the explosions looked big yet distant, but when you took the time to look at the size of the houses around the explosions you started to realise how big it all was.
I also got a couple of cracking good pics of the Melbourne fragment as it passed overhead. I can’t believe it, actually. I mean, I didn’t even aim the camera really, just pressed the button a few times in hope. One of the pics was nearly in portrait where you can see the city of Adelaide at the bottom and the comet high in the sky at the top. Looking back on this image makes me realise how big this fragment must’ve been. I mean it’s kinda hard to slap an accurate guess of size as I don’t know how high up it was or anything but it certainly dwarfed any planes that usually fly over a similar route. Seriously – that thing could’ve been a kilometre across, maybe more!
I also did a few separate series of pics I’ve just stitched into panoramas in Photoshop using a trick Dad showed me. I love creating them and I pretty much slipped into auto-pilot last night and snapped images after each major situation. Thank god I had the forethought to take a picture before a
nything bad happened – the ‘before’ shot. It gives me such a great frame of reference for all the other shots. I don’t know why I took it really; I think it was just to remember what Adelaide looked like.
I probably sat there for 30 minutes or so just looking at the screen with the panorama of pre-disaster above the panorama of devastation. It’s all still sinking in but, wow! I think I’m gonna print out a copy of everything and find a wall to stick them on.
The toasties were a vegemite + cheese win, by the way
3.30pm: I’ve just taken stock of the place. The electricity still works, although that’s the solar panels feeding into the grid – not sure how I can find out about the grid. Gas is down, phone lines are down and the majority of the TV signal is still down but I was able to pick-up ABC. Apparently the normal service is completely screwed and they’re broadcasting from a local signal on top of their building on North East Rd, which has been damaged by the tsunami but they’ve tricked something up. They’re saying the range is not great but I’m getting a reasonable signal from here.
Most importantly I was able to get some news about what’s going on beyond what I have seen and it’s scary…
As the experts feared, the comet split due to its instability and heat and forces in the upper atmosphere. It made the damage close to worst-case scenario.
The main comet impact – estimated at just over 3km across – ploughed into the Bay of Bengal, causing utter catastrophe in the region. The blast, ensuing tsunamis and ‘fireballs’ have pretty much wiped life off the map from India to Indonesia and as far away as China.