CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
As Brisbane City continues an accelerated modernisation aimed at turning the Queensland capital from an isolated punk rock outpost into an international city that Asian people might enjoy visiting, the most important developments are focused on sprucing up the long overlooked riverfront.
The anxious march towards an Olympic Games that nobody really asked for is well underway – and by the time that 2032 comes around, it is hoped that there will not be one inch of the mighty Brisbane River where a tourist cannot drink a schooner.
While years of marketing and town planning have gone into these refurbishments, the locals couldn’t help themselves but refer to this inner-city bend of the Brown Snake as DUSBO (Down Under The Story Bridge Overpass).
What was once a stretch of warehouses and muddy sand full of syringes and discarded handguns, DUSBO has given brisbane just the kick it needs to transform from ‘Australia’s Kansas City’ into ‘Australia’s Atlanta’
With breweries, bars, live music and 24-hour water misters to keep cool – DUSBO feels like Brisbane’s greatest achievement since Expo 88.
That is, except for the fact that none of the residents can drink down there without reminiscing upon that traumatic time when the river flooded.
The 2011 Brisbane Floods, Also known as the ‘Brown Snake’s Rattle’ was a bloodless disaster for the city that resulted in $1 billion in damages to homes and businesses.
One local Queenslander has today found himself doing just this, as Dewy Woomber (32) shows some visiting relatives just what his city has to offer.
While walking towards the nearest cold beer, along one of the many riverwalk options on the mighty Brown Snake, Dewy cannot help but point out that it didn’t always look like this.
“you wouldn’t believe it, but this was all underwater during the floods” says Dewy, while pointing to what you’d only assume was the first parcel of land to go underwater during even the slightest of floods.
“Is that right?” says one of the Sydney cousins, who is absolutely rocked by this information.
“Jeez. Must’ve been a rough time”
Dewy sighs and begins telling the old fable.
“Yeah mate. It was tough, I tell ya. See all of these houses over there. They got a lick of it too” he says, pointing to a row of first floor timber houses less than 10 inches above the bank itself.
“Mud everywhere”
“We’d had two weeks of record breaking rain”
“and then it just happened suddenly”
