Memoirs

Milla Phelan

On Tuesday, February the 13th it was a 42°day. I was at the pool with some friends, and it was so fun. We were jumping in, bombing and doing all that fun stuff. The lifeguards had been telling some people to get out of the pool because they could hear thunder - it wasn’t even 5 minutes later that everything changed…

We had gone with my friends’ mum and her kids, but when the lifeguard said everyone out of the pool, she bolted to the change rooms, grabbed her kids, got in the car and drove away! She left me and one of my friends at the pool expecting we had a way home, but if it wasn’t for having gotten credit for my phone in the morning then we wouldn’t have had a way home because my friend had left her phone in her locker.

I was standing under the shade, and it started spitting rain. Initially it was coming across the pool slowly. We both looked at it in amazement as it started getting heavier and heavier. The wind also started picking up, it was enough to make me step back from the force of it. It was getting strong now, hail the size of a marble was hitting us and cutting and bruising the back of our legs. The wind continued to pick up. The hail now pouring down like it was thick fog. Hail the size of a gumnut! We tried to run into the shelter, but I couldn’t. The wind was picking me up. It picked me up and I slammed into the door frame, luckily my phone was in front of my face, so I didn’t get a concussion. I grabbed hold of that door frame all the while bawling my eyes out. I was the only one still outside. Russell (Ella’s Dad) grabbed my arm and flung me into the kiosk where everybody else was sheltered. We were in there for only two minutes and there were 6 other highschoolers all calling their parents in distress. I was shaking and trembling and I could not talk…

After that ended, we left the kiosk and went outside expecting there to be hail stones on the ground and for it to be wet but instead there were trees down practically everywhere. There was a cold breeze but not much else. The pool covers were in the pool and the pool was a swamp green mixed with brown. The pool had sticks, leaves and all the kids play equipment was on the other side of the pool. That was the only damage done, no one was hurt. The hail had been so loud on the tin doors we did not hear trees snapping or the powerlines falling at all. Little did I know that the roof had collapsed behind me when I got flung into the kiosk.

My Mum could not get through to Mirboo North as she was trapped out of Mirboo North There was a nice lady, KJ who was at the pool when it happened, and she called my Mum and offered to take me home along with some others because Mum couldn’t get through for another 3 hours. When Mum came and picked me up, I ran to her and then we went for a drive around to see the damage. We only drove to the areas we could get to. Everyone made it and nobody was harmed except Bruce Manintveld, 50, who was riding a quad bike when he was struck with a piece of metal that had detached from a shed at his property at the height of the storms, according to WorkSafe. Mr Manintveld's wife Fiona, she said he was “A man who loved his cows.” R.I.P, we will never forget what you have done for the community.

The clean-up has started, and they estimate that the clean-up will be another one and a half years so everyone including community members kid’s, adults, and people from around the area some even from Melbourne have been helping! Did you know that on the first two days after the tornado hit there was nobody outside of Mirboo North that knew about it until there was posts about it and people like me who were involved in it got the word out. The SES and helpers came 3 days after. Not good enough!

The Terrifying Tornado

Anaiyah Macnamara

On February the 13th. 2024, it was a 42° day at the local pool, and I was there with some friends. We were having so much fun jumping in the pool and talking even though we could see an upcoming little thunderstorm. Half an hour later it started to show its true colours.

My friends and I were talking and were oblivious to what was about to happen. All of a sudden, I heard thunder. My Mum had just got off the phone to my Nana and Auntie when she stood up and started to pack up our things. Mum told us to get out of the pool, get our stuff and get to the car. She looked concerned so me and my brother got out and started to walk to the car.

We had just got in and put on the seatbelts when we heard the pool sirens. From then on, it was a race to get home. As we were driving, I wondered if we should do a U-turn and drive back to the pool to get my two friends, but we were already too close to home.

The thunder was rumbling angrily, and as I looked back, the sky was black, and I could see flashes of lightning. Just as we got home, it started hailing. We ran inside. Then it was raining even harder than ever, and then the power went out.

My brother was extremely terrified because my Mum was out putting rugs on the horses and locking up the chickens while the storm was happening. About one minute later she came running in, “Phew,” we all said. After three minutes the storm had finished.

We had to light some candles so we could see, but at least they smelt good. After one day without power, we decided to drive to some places in town so we could get fuel for the generator, but the two places we went to were shut. So, we drove to Churchill to get fuel, luckily it was open, we needed the generator because that’s the only way we could have water and run the fridges.

It was tough not being able to have internet and to be able to check up on friends or to see how they were doing, but we got by pretty well. After three days without power, we decided to clean up the house by chopping up the one tree that fell near our house. That day we got a call from my Auntie. She said that she had not been able to milk her cows for two days due to trees down and what not, so we decided to go over to Loch and help her out.

When we were driving through Mirboo North to get to Loch it was devastating. There were trees down everywhere. The bush going into Mirboo North was gone and everything was destroyed. Trees were pulled out of the ground leaving the roots exposed. Buildings were destroyed, shed walls were ripped off, but to make it even more scary to think about, a friend of mine had her house’s roof ripped off while she was in it!

It was safe to say there was no homework for a week and no school because the school was a wreck. A tree fell on the roof of the school, multiple trees had fallen and needed to be chopped up. The ovals were not accessible. What was worse, was that on the day that the storm happened, the weather app said there was only going to be a thunderstorm. Not a tornado!

There even was a guy named Bruce Manintveld who died in the storm. He was a 50-year-old man riding his quad bike at the time the storm hit when out of nowhere a sheet of tin came flying at him, and he sadly passed.

It just shows that the world is a dangerous place.

Right now, we are cleaning up the community and helping those in need. The estimated time till everything is restored is about a year and a half. Currently the school roof is now being fixed, the ovals are all cleaned up. It’s a dangerous world. Stay safe out there. 😊

THE STORM~ A MEMOIR

Maeve Stoertebecker

On my birthday, the 13th of February 2024, I turned 12.

I got home from school and my Mum told me to put my shoes in my room. I walked down my hallway and turned into my room, and there it was - a double bed with a new bedspread and pictures hanging on my wall. There was also Mum’s phone sitting there for my reaction.

I yelled, “THANK YOU!!!”

My Mum said, “Surprise!”

I glanced at my desk, and it was moved meaning everything on it was on the ground so my parents could move it.

“I’ll clean my desk,” I said, and I got some toilet paper and cleaning spray. I was cleaning my skincare turntable when I got sprayed with water from outside. I got up and closed my window then closed my sheers. I glanced out of my window and literally saw a branch fly through the sky.

I grabbed my phone from my bed and ran to the living room. Dad was yelling, “Close the door and get in the hallway!” I knew Dad was worried, I could tell by the serious tone in his voice. So, we ran to the hallway, then we were huddled in the hallway for about 3 minutes.

After the storm, Dad walked up into the living room and the first thing he said was, “We’ve lost our roof!” then he pointed to our chimney, well where our chimney had been. “Look!”

We looked up and it was gone, only a small hole where the flue was. We looked around the house, Elky’s window was smashed, my room was leaking rapidly from the roof, Clem’s room was wet, and my parents’ room had leaves blown in it from the windows being opened and the flyscreens being pushed in by the force of the wind.

Mum went into the other lounge room and gasped. We followed her in. Our big window showed all our trees, uprooted, and snapped. The only tree left was a flexible 1-meter-high lime tree. We went outside and looked down our court, you could see houses that you couldn’t have seen before. Our neighbours (who were Elky’s friends) came out to see if we were okay.

My Aunty (Tracy) called to ask if it was still ok to come over for my birthday; Mum still had a tiny bit of data on her phone and told her what happened. My Aunty called my Uncle and told them to go to our house straight away.

We started clearing out our stuff from the house and about 20 minutes later my cousin (Farrah) and Uncle (Gene) walked up the court and said, “There are trees for ages around and I couldn’t get down Baths Road.” He also said that Tracy and Burke (my other cousin) were on their way.

We continued to take larger items out of the house and about 10 minutes later Tracy and Burke arrived. We continued to get stuff out of the house. At roughly 9:00pm we spilt up into three cars to drive to Meeniyan where my cousins live. We had to take loads of back roads to get to Meeniyan because of all the trees on the highway, and it took about 45 minutes instead of the usual 25 minutes. There was no power in Meeniyan so we gathered all the torches at their house and played ‘Uno’ by the candlelight.

At 11pm we had some chocolate mud cake which was for my birthday, and I got my present from my cousins. We got in our P.J.s and got ready for bed. I slept in my cousin’s old bed (a queen) with my sister, and my brother slept on a swag mattress next to us.

The next day I woke up at 10am, and Gene was on the phone talking to his parents, asking him if we could stay at their holiday house in Inverloch for a few nights. They said yes and we packed up our things and we drove to Inverloch. As we walked in, Gene flicked on the light and cheered, as they had power. We played table tennis in their garage and watched the news; our house was on it. We all went to bed early because we were so tired.

The next day Mum and Tracy went for a walk and got some magazines for Clem and me as well as some lollies for everyone to share. I watched ‘The Hobbit’ for ages and it was a great movie. After that we went down to the beach and Sunday was so excited, she was even doing flips! We dipped our feet in the water, and it was FREEZING!! We went into a driftwood teepee and took some photos. We went back to the house, and we all ordered some kebabs (even though they’re more like souvlakis).

“We are going home tomorrow, you three are going to Nanny and Poppy’s,” Dad some pointing to us kids.

We went and packed up and drove home, to pack up some more things. Nanny came around 1pm and we grabbed our things and went off to Traralgon. We got Maccas for lunch and when we arrived at Nanny and Poppys, I got my late birthday present.

That night we got fish and chips and watched a movie. Clem, Elky, and I all slept in the big queen spare bed with Sunday, but it was way too hot, so I went into the bunks with Sunday. The next day we drove home at 10am and we went to our new house. (We got one because Dads’ friend is a real estate agent and had a spare house where the owners had already moved so we could live there.) Once we arrived, I started to unpack my things onto my shelves and desk.

This is an event I will never ever, ever forget…

A Scary Time in My Life Memoir

Zoe Norwood

Crunch, crunch went the dry old leaves I stomped on as I was zooming down the steep hill towards the Mirboo North pool. I was rushing to meet my friends there on this boiling Tuesday. I walked down the zig zag pathway sliding my hand on the hot steel railing and as I stood in the entrance waiting for the pool staff my best friend Ella jumped out of the pool and jogged up the hill to meet me. Before we could greet each other there was this loud blow of the lifeguard’s whistle.

“Everyone, the pool is closed!”

Ella and I glared at each other with disgust. She came up to me as everyone was leaving the pool.

“We literally were in here for ten minutes!” she blurted with an annoying look on her face.

“Are they joking or something, I haven’t even touched the water yet!” I spoke. As everyone left me Ella had to say goodbye to her Dad as he was remaining to do a bit more maintenance work.

As Ella and I stomped up the hill in anger we noticed all the black, dark, threatening clouds.

“The pool must have closed because of the storm that’s coming” I commented.

“Yeah, it’s so annoying they closed the pool, we didn’t get any swim time! That lifeguard is so annoying,” Ella huffed.

“I know right.” I sighed. “Wait Ella! We should go to the park for the storm, it would be so fun!”

Her eyes lit up as she said, “OMG yes!!!”

We wanted to get to the park before the storm started. As we heard the thunder quickly getting louder, we decided to walk more briskly up to my house. As we were on my street, we ran fast to my house, kicking the dusty stones in the air behind us.

“I’ll just grab a jacket and then we will head up to the park!” I puffed as we both ran into my house. No one was home, so our footsteps thundered through the empty house. I flung the door to my room open to find a big, hairy, black huntsman sitting on my wardrobe door. I screamed at the top of my lungs and Ella came speeding into my room with a worried look on her face.

“WHAT IS IT!” she yelled trying to be louder than my deafening scream.

“There is a HUGE huntsman!!!” I said.

She marched pasted me to get a look at the spider and a look of terror spread across her face. Then, for a whole five minutes we were screaming and jumping around the house.

When we heard her Dad’s car pull up in the driveway, we walked outside to greet him. It was then that Ella realized she had lost her phone!

Her Dad heard this news and suddenly got worried, “Did you leave it at the pool!?” he said.

“Maybe,” Ella said with a sound of guilt.

“I’m going to the pool before the storm comes, we CAN’T lose your phone, I’ll be back soon,” he called as he jumped back into his car.

Our plan to go to the park had been demolished, there was no way we could make it in time. Lightning struck everywhere around us but all we were worried about was finding Ella’s phone. I kept ringing it and Ella kept looking through all her bags, “What if my phone is in the storm!” she wailed.

“I’m sure it’s just somewhere in the house,” I comforted her. We scrambled through her bags but there was no sign of it. I continued to call her phone but as it went to message bank I got distracted. Suddenly as this was all happening, we started to hear the wind violently picking up and the rain pelting from the sky.

In the blink of an eye huge hail came plummeting from the dark sky. I couldn’t hear anything but the thoughts racing around my head. Ella stared at me and screamed, “ZOE WHATS HAPPENING!” as tears started to pour out of her eyes.

“I DON’T KNOW, BUT WE NEED TO THINK!” I yelled as I started to tear up as well. I grabbed her hand, and we jumped on the couch, but the windows were about to break so we ran to the kitchen and looked out the window to witness the most terrifying thing of our lives. It was a tornado! We saw timber flying everywhere, trees falling, leaves all over the windows, and people’s roofs flying off. I tried to think straight but my head was exploding.

“DON’T WE NEED TO GET TO A DOORWAY OR SOMETHING?” I sobbed.

“I THINK SO!” replied Ella.

But before we knew it the storm had ended, and we had no time to get to a safer place. “What about my Dad?” cried Ella as we sat on the kitchen floor.

“I’m sure your Dad would have gotten to safety at the pool,” I comforted her.

I grabbed my phone to call my Dad to see if he was ok. He had previously told me he would be driving home from work. I managed to get hold of him and learned that he was fine but that he wouldn’t be home for a few hours because of all the trees that were across the road.

“What about everyone else, are they ok?” Ella said with a frown.

“Oh yeah, let’s walk down the road and have a look” I replied. We slowly walked outside my house and up my driveway to see trees on forty percent of people’s houses and lots of people standing in their driveways looking as shocked as us.

“Oh my god!” I whispered to myself.

“My Dad!” Ella said sounding excited as he was driving up the wet, rocky road.

He pulled into the driveway and said, “Are you guys, ok? That was a really big storm!” As he was talking with Ella about what to do, I was on my phone calling our friends to make sure they were ok.

“I am going to have to help somebody down the road who is stuck between trees, you need to stay inside, it’s not safe out here,” he sternly said.

“Ok.” Ella and I agreed as he drove off.

As me and Ella walked inside, we heard the voices of our friends, they were up in the driveway waving at us. I zoomed up and hugged them.

“What just happened!” I questioned.

“I have no idea but are you guys, ok?” they asked.

“We are fine,” Ella replied.

We all went inside the house and decided to play music and have a party with the remaining battery on my phone and as we were doing this, we found Ella’s phone! She was so relieved and happy. Despite all the destruction around us and the scary experience a few good things were starting to happen. After our dance party we noticed all the ice outside, so we went out and had a snowball fight and built a snowman. So at least we have a few happy memories from the worst day ever.

Cyclone (Event Memoir)

Chase Davies

February 13th, 2024 was a hot day. I was going to head to the pool, but I didn’t have enough money, so I was at the skate park with my mates. Then I saw a big grey cloud.

I thought it would be a bit of thunder and rain, but I was wrong. The wind started picking up, but I thought nothing of it. Then I headed to Bo’s house, and we were just messing around his house until we heard big drops of hail hit the tin roof. The wind picked up and the next thing we saw was a white blanket of rain covering the window making it impossible to see out of.

We ran to Bo’s kitchen so no trees would fall on us. For the next 5 minutes all we could see was a white blanket of rain mixed with really heavy wind. Then the wind suddenly slowed down, and the rain became a drizzle. As we looked out the window, we could see that all of Bo’s trees had snapped.

As I ran out the door, I saw my Mum’s car on the road. I ran towards the car and Mum picked me up and drove me home. An hour later I went exploring the destroyed town as I headed down Balding Street, I saw Clancy walking up the road. I ran down the road to him and then we went around the town seeing if anyone needed help. As we were walking up to the park, cars were going around saying, “Do not drink the water its contaminated.”

When we got to the park, we saw that the cover had fallen on to the park and the big tree had also fallen. Clancy and I walked down to the pool and saw it was destroyed, as well as Baths Road Reserve. While we were at the pool, the workers walked out and gave us a Maxibon. When we were done with the Maxibon we tried to get into the Baths Road Reserve. Clancy and I climbed up on a fallen tree as we got on the tree we could see the new estate. Normally the reserve would be covered by trees so you could not see the estate. We jumped off the tree and walked out of the pool. We walked to Allen Street to Clancy’s and helped clean up there and after that I went home and slept.

The next day, (Aftermath of The Storm), I got up at around 8:00 am and headed to the park. I got bored there quickly so I walked up to the rec reserve. I saw that the goal posts had been snapped and bent. When I was done looking, I headed back to the skate park where I saw Riley, Xavier and Bo talking. I headed over and asked them if their houses were ok. Luckily, their houses were ok. Bo and I left to get our scooters. Bo grabbed a broom so we could sweep all the leaves out of the skate bowl. It took up to 3 hours to get the leaves and water out, it was around 5:00 pm when we finished.

We headed to the shops and luckily, they had generators so we could get cold drinks. After we had bought drinks, we headed back to the skate park to finish our drinks and start riding again. A few hours passed and I had to head home. That night I played Uno with my parents.

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