{"id":457906,"date":"2026-02-04T13:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T13:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/457906\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T13:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T13:32:18","slug":"flood-hit-family-living-in-caravan-and-shed-during-blistering-thargomindah-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/457906\/","title":{"rendered":"Flood-hit family living in caravan and shed during blistering Thargomindah summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the immediate threat has passed, the water washes away and the headlines move on, what’s left behind is the hardest part.<\/p>\n

Melinda Byrne and her family are living in their backyard in Thargomindah, in outback Queensland, where it’s reached 48.5 degrees Celsius this summer.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Eleven-year-old Nate is living between a caravan, shed and a collapsible donga that’s been turned into his bedroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That’s because 10 months ago the entire community watched a temporary levee break and inundate their town during what was a once-in-a-generation outback flood<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The torrent of water destroyed Ms Byrne’s home, which was uninsured.<\/p>\n

Call to insurer even worse than the sight of this flood-damaged home<\/a><\/p>\n

When Melinda Byrne finally returned to her flood-damaged home, a call to her insurance company proved even more heartbreaking than the sight of her destroyed possessions.<\/p>\n

Air conditioners struggled through 25 days of temperatures above 40C in January, including seven consecutive days above 45C.<\/p>\n

“It’s like walking into a wall of heat and when the wind picks up it’s like standing in front of a fan-force oven cranked up as hot as it can go with the door open,” Ms Byrne said.<\/p>\n

Her son, 11-year-old Nate Girdler, described the heat as “like being in a volcano”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Nate said he could barely fit in the bunk bed in the caravan supplied by the Department of Housing. (ABC Western Qld: Hannah Walsh)<\/p>\n

Ms Byrne said they would love to be back in their house by next Christmas, but she isn’t confident that will be the case.<\/p>\n

“It’s a long road back for us \u2014 we’re still in the process of completing the strip out of our house,” she said.<\/p>\n

“The reality of having to fully fund it \u2026 not being eligible for any state government grants.”<\/p>\n

\"Melinda<\/p>\n

Ms Byrne said they are stripping all their walls and starting from scratch in their house.\u00a0 (ABC Western Qld: Hannah Walsh)<\/p>\n

Ms Byrne said they will do a lot of the work themselves, but even getting materials to Thargomindah is costly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I think we’re going to be YouTubing a lot,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I’m guessing we’re looking at years.”Life goes on but it’s hard<\/p>\n

A collapsible donga now gives Nate his own space, instead of sleepless nights bunked into a caravan, listening to his dad snore.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Rotary Australian Districts and Rotary Australia World Community Service sent six rapid response “houses” to Thargomindah. (ABC Western Qld: Hannah Walsh)<\/p>\n

The family has turned their shed into a living space with a kitchen, lounges and aircon.<\/p>\n

“You’re walking between different buildings at night and, early in the morning, you become very aware of the possibility of snakes,” Ms Byrne said.<\/p>\n

“We’re doing the best we can, but life can be clunky some days.<\/p>\n

“The caravan is quite hot, but this is life \u2026 we’re all in various levels of recovery.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The family has turned their shed into a living space with a kitchen and aircon.\u00a0 (ABC Western Qld: Hannah Walsh)<\/p>\n

Ms Byrne said it was nice to be away for a six-week stay with family over Christmas.<\/p>\n

“While we were away, we bought a bed and other stuff so I can sleep in there [the collapsible donga] and do stuff,” Nate said.<\/p>\n

“Coming back we thought we were going to hit the ground running \u2026 then we come back to a heatwave and it’s just too hot to do anything,” his mum said.<\/p>\n

“It’s frustrating when you’ve got to sit and look at it and you can’t really do anything.”<\/p>\n

\"Clothes<\/p>\n

One of the rooms inside the stripped out house is being used as a clothes cupboard.\u00a0 (ABC Western Qld: Hannah Walsh)<\/p>\n

Hotter summers and flood worries<\/p>\n

Ms Byrne grew up in Thargomindah and said she felt each summer was getting hotter.<\/p>\n

“Our cars and our thermometers at home are always reading higher than the official temperatures.”<\/p>\n

Residents say the beauty of “Thargo” is that everyone “just gets on with it.”<\/p>\n

“But you do see around the edges that people start to get a bit frazzled with how hot it is,” Ms Byrne said.<\/p>\n

\"Melinda<\/p>\n

Melinda Byrne said summer in Thargomindah is getting hotter.\u00a0 (ABC Western Qld: Maddelin McCosker)<\/p>\n

A lot of residents in town have resorted to getting their own generators and Starlink due to constant power outages<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, Thargomindah relies on one powerline running more than 700 kilometres to supply electricity to\u00a0the town.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Through necessity \u2026 when the power goes out, we can also lose phone service \u2026 mobile and landline,” she said.<\/p>\n

“When you’ve got blistering hot days, no power \u2026 life gets a little scary.<\/p>\n

“It’s a bit better now \u2026 Telstra has put a generator on their tower too.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ms Byrne said it’s going to be years before they finish rebuilding their house.\u00a0 (ABC Western Qld: Hannah Walsh)<\/p>\n

Nate said when it’s hot he just wants to go in the water.<\/p>\n

“I go on the trampoline with the sprinkler and go crazy,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Floods used to be remembered fondly, but now they’re a trigger of painful memories.<\/p>\n

\"Boy<\/p>\n

Nate takes to the trampoline with a sprinkler in the heat.\u00a0 (ABC Western Qld: Hannah Walsh)<\/p>\n

“We used to look forward to a good flood,” Ms Byrne said.<\/p>\n

“We loved everything about them \u2014 watching the river rise, floating down the river in a tube, we loved the smell, it changed the mood in town.<\/p>\n

“It wasn’t until the reality of sitting up on a hill for 10 days knowing water is through your house but not knowing how far.<\/p>\n

“You hoped everything was OK, even though you knew it wasn’t.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the immediate threat has passed, the water washes away and the headlines move on, what’s left behind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,235760,235758,118075,235762,235761,235759,128,235757],"class_list":["post-457906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-queensland-flood-assistance","tag-queensland-flood-recovery","tag-queensland-floods","tag-queensland-heatwave","tag-queensland-summer-temperatures","tag-rapid-response-housing","tag-science","tag-thargomindah-flood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}