A Case of Beauty! xx: Queensland Floods

I rarely find myself being dramatically affected by natural disasters. After September 11 and how deeply affected I was by that I made a resolution to not let myself get so emotionally involved with anything like that again. It hurt me and haunted me for weeks. I felt like I was walking around with a cloud over my head and wondered why we would bother living in this world at all if such things could and do happen. The images on the TV screen of people jumping from the burning buildings still haunt me. So after that if there is any kind of huge disaster I never read more than one article about it. I won’t watch it on TV and I won’t go to the galleries of pictures to upset myself over the loss of human and animal life. But I do usually donate to certain charities that support the people who have been affected so I can 'lend a hand' without getting too involved. But this time was different.

I didn't know anyone that was directly affected by the flooding. My friends live in high rise buildings or are in areas that were unaffected even though that may have only been by a metre. I couldn't tare myself away from the TV or the Brisbane Times website or the on flow of information and pictures people were putting up on Facebook and twitter. Watching the death toll slowly rise and the number of people unaccounted for rise even faster. Reading the terrifying stories in the paper and seeing peoples tear stained and exhausted faces on television. I sat for probably two hours watching Sky News and even though it was basically the same information over and over and over again for two hours I couldn't get away. By the night time I felt so.... depressed. People were so scared and confused and it wasn't just the people being affected by the floods... I think the whole of Australia actually felt that way. This kind of thing doesn't happen in a major city in Australia let alone places that have been on water restrictions in recent years.

I promised blogs and posts at the beginning of the week but couldn’t write and then if I found something worth posting I couldn't as I found that it might be insensitive. People are losing their homes and loved ones and I would be posting pictures of Jimmy Choos... hmmm doesn't fit. But as they say every cloud has a silver lining. The light behind the gigantic clouds that dumped more water on us than needed was people’s morale. The respect I have for the people who were standing waist deep in water in their living rooms and telling a reporter ‘we are just doing what we can to keep our spirits high and even though its not a nice thing that’s happened it has happened and we just have to get on with it’. What a brilliant attitude. It’s your attitude that can make or break you, not your circumstances. You can choose to let your circumstance’s overwhelm you and feel hopeless about the situation or you can take the attitude that things will get better, because they always do, and get on with the task at hand. The attitude of the people who have been affected by the floods has sparked something within us all and caused a ripple effect. The amount of people who have put up their hand to offer assistance is phenomenal.

Australian’s are donating money left right and center, places designated to take food and supplies have started turning people away as there has been so much donated in such a short amount of time. Volunteers are pouring into Brisbane to help with the big clean up and there are so many people who have put their names down to foster animals until they can be returned home that I haven’t even been considered for the job yet! There are always the amazing animal advocates to help us remember that it’s not only people that were affected but animals were too so there is a large amount of people donating their money to the RSPCA to help them pay for the mounting vet bills that animals incurred because of the floods.

Anna Bligh’s popularity is through the roof due to her reassuring words and fast acting tactics. Even the seemingly forgotten Kevin Rudd was out there helping to search for the missing. It is quite appropriate that Australia Day is drawing near as in this terrible time people are banding together to help in any way they can and ‘lending a hand’ which in turn has made people extremely proud to be an Australian. The Gold Coast had a ‘Mates in Need’ street party at Tedder Avenue in Main Beach to help raise some money. I drove to Tedder Avenue on Friday night hoping that there would be at least a few people there so I could talk to them about the floods and maybe take some happy snaps of fashionistas. I didn’t think that there would be many people there at all as I didn't remember it was actually a Friday night because the week felt like it all melded into one big day of not so great news and of course the impending chance of rain. How wrong I was!

The street was blocked off to cars and full of people, food and entertainment! This brilliant night raised almost $1 million dollars! Gold Coasters had turned out in force to donate money to a wonderful cause that was close to our hearts. Magic Millions was also this week hence there was a few Australian Celebrities who came to lend a hand to help people empty their pockets into tins!

Australian Miss Universe 2008 Laura Dundovic and Kerley from Channel V

V8 Car Driver James Courtney

Face of Magic Millions Jess Hart and me!

The Queensland Premiers Disaster Relief Fund is climbing steadily and is at $64,329,927. Stars from all of the world are giving the Fund a shout out, from Tim Cahill to Nicole Richie to YouTube star Philip DeFranco encouraging people to donate money.

The clean up is well underway and people are encouraged to donate cleaning supplies and money to help get our Queensland back to working order as soon as possible so people can return to their homes and their jobs.