Ariana La Porte, PhD candidate at Monash University

January 2nd, 2023. We had taken our radios to bed the night before, just as a precaution. The water was already up to the parking area, which was as high as anyone had ever seen it, and it was still raining. I dislike rain generally and resent the periodic floods of the Wet season because they wash away the nests we’ve found, but I was looking forward to sleeping past 3:45am. It’s too dangerous to work along the creek when it’s raging, so storms give us a brief break from crack-of-dawn nest searching.

We were a month in to a four-month field season at Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary, a conservation area in the Kimberley managed by Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC). My research is part of a long-term study led by my supervisor, Anne Peters from Monash University, on a population of purple-crowned fairywrens (Malurus coronatus coronatus), an endangered riparian songbird endemic to Northwest Australia. I am studying how high temperature affects nestlings (surprise: it’s bad), and whether adults can provide protection by choosing cooler nest sites. Our four-person team was on-site with four AWC staff and we’d just gotten into the swing of the field season. I was naive about the potential impact of the storm, since heavy rain and floods are typical of the Wet in this region and are weathered every year. We’d stocked up on supplies for the four months the roads would be impassable, and I figured we’d be fine. The AWC crew had prepared for a potential flood given the low system moving towards us, moving things to higher ground, and securing loose items.

“All hands to Research” came over the radio sometime after dawn. “That’s weird,” I thought, but wasn’t too concerned. “Research” is the research office, and I rolled into a pair of shorts and slosh down. When I got there, the water had reached the steps. AWC staff had turned off the electricity and contacted managers off-site; started 2-hourly check-ins, and put an evacuation plan in place. We started moving everything from the lower cabinets to higher up, including the hundreds of herbarium samples that took decades to collect.

We were almost finished when the water started coming through the floorboards. We started moving things even higher, but were running out of room. I looked out the sliding glass door and saw half a meter of water held back behind it. Someone came in and the water rose to our knees.

Operational switch: we need to get stuff out. Fast. Someone passed us a storage box though the window, and we started shoving things in. Luckily, we had a few dry bags, so I used them for the laptops, and remembered to cram in the datasheets too. I swept off shelves and desks—the small stuff mostly fits—and the water was rising quickly. We passed the box back to someone in the waist-high water outside. I dumped my Nalgene to lighten my backpack and handed it out too. The team was taking everything to the kitchen, which is on slightly higher ground. We worked on the rest of the office, but soon the water was up to the windowsill and we had to get out.

As I waded through the teeming rain toward the kitchen 25 m away, I saw someone in a pack raft, ferrying boxes. The AWC wildlife ecologist is on the porch staring out at camp.

She was wearing a life vest and her face was focused—she’s keeping us safe and rescuing data while her home of seven years goes completely under water.

When I got to the kitchen it was clear that this “safe” spot would be inundated. We floated everything on a pack raft to the next highest building. On the way out I grabbed the board games, reasoning that we might need entertainment while stranded. Did I bring food? No. Drinking water? No. In fact, I realized later, I had dumped it out. But if you wanted to play Wingspan, I had you covered.

We piled onto the porch with everything we’ve rescued, and sat, dripping, looking out at the rain. Nobody said much. After a while we realized that this building would be submerged too, so we pack-rafted everything to the very last house on this side of the creek. Nobody could have foreseen the magnitude of this flood—the amount of rain in the catchment far exceeded the radar predictions—and we never imagined we’d need to retreat this far.

There is one structure higher than this one, but it’s half a kilometre away across the floodwater. We would need something bigger than the pack rafts to get everything—and everyone—up there. A couple of people paddled over to the shed for some canoes, so we would be ready to cross if needed. When they returned, they reported that the water was up to the roof of the research office. My heart breaks for the herbarium.

The rain had gotten lighter by early evening but the water was still rising. The nearby Adcock River must have broken its banks; there’s no other way there could be this much water so quickly. AWC staff had stocked us up on food and fresh water at the evacuation point. I was grateful to be in such capable, professional hands, and felt safe despite the devastation. People started opening cans of spaghetti. The stove didn’t work but we eat from the cans anyway. Nobody plays Wingspan.

We took shifts to monitor the water overnight. Thankfully it didn’t swamp us and there was no need for the canoes. In the morning the sky had cleared somewhat and we could call out on the satellite phone. A helicopter was dispatched but couldn’t make it until the next day because the storm was still dumping.

By mid-morning the gutted river had started to drain, and the water had gone down several meters from its overnight high. There was a table floating around the lawn next to a chest freezer and the washing machines. The dishes on the highest kitchen shelves were eerily dry, but everything else was soggy and covered in reeking, slimy silt. We rescue frozen dumplings, hashbrowns, and spring rolls from an upturned freezer—luckily the seal held and no floodwater got inside. There was still plenty of canned food but everyone was tired of spaghetti and baked beans. That night we feasted. We curled up on our stuff and told stories in the dark, grateful that the rain has stopped.

The helicopter came the next day, and we evacuated to Derby with a backpack each. I am impressed by AWC’s preparedness and efficient emergency response—we were safe and well cared for throughout the whole ordeal.

The view from above was arresting. The tree-lined riverbank was a small strip of green in a massive, muddy lake. I know the current must have been insane, but you couldn’t tell from up above. Looking out, I felt sad, and a bit airsick. The ecosystem will recover in the short term, but how many more floods will breach these banks? How many droughts will follow? How many species will withstand this “new normal?” How many years until this landscape is unrecognizable?

The flood, caused by record-breaking ex-tropical cyclone Ellie, destroyed most of the infrastructure in the central Kimberley. This is hard on my PhD—climate change itself has made studying its effects more difficult—but it’s hardest for the people who lived out here, including many Indigenous communities.

For us, a season of data has been lost, but plans are underway to return. Hopefully next Wet season we’ll be waking up at 3:45 am daily to nest search again.

In the meantime, at least I can play Wingspan.

Image credits (top to bottom):