From war to wet

By Gavin Staindl
On Friday night, they experienced something entirely different, but just as devastating.
As water gushed through their front door, soaking everything in their home, all they could do was escape and then wait for the water to recede.
“What a stupid weekend,” Lado Alphonse, 16, said as he made his way to school on Monday morning.
“On Friday it was sunny and warm, then on Friday night I had a flood in my house.”
The Alphonse family was one of 27 houses along Ebony Drive, Pakenham, to have suffered at the hands of the floods that roared into Cardinia Shire over the weekend.
At 8.15pm on Friday night, Lado’s mum, Asa Juan, noticed water seeping into the house from the adjoining garage door.
Curious to know where the seepage was coming from she opened the door, only to be met by a gushing force of water that raced past her feet and began covering the lounge room floor.
Water that had streamed down from the Dandenongs settled in her house and within half an hour the water level had surged higher than the power points and reached knee height.
In a moment of panic Lado’s sister, Aclyone, dropped her mobile phone in a pool of water that had formed around her legs while trying to call for help.
Lado tried in vain to direct the water outside but the strength of the water-mass refused to let him open any doors. Eventually, the family managed to escape via elevated windows.
In the backyard, the water level was beyond a metre high.
A two-metre wooden fence that divided their blocks from their neighbours was blown apart.
Such was the intensity of the floods that the ironclad tool shed was ripped from its foundation and shifted into the neighbouring property, where it still remains.
At 10pm help finally arrived and the two-hour process of clearing water from the house began.
Lado lives in a house with three brothers, two sisters and his mother.
The next day the front lawn was piled with shoes, clothes, school books, televisions, bags, suitcases and photos all ready for disposal.
As his mum was admitted to hospital on Monday night for chemotherapy treatment, Lado knew the worse was still to come.
“This is the hard part,” Lado said. “Getting our life back is the hard part.”