NEWSLETTER

were removed to the Roma Street railwayyards. That evening thousands of workerswere stranded in the city.Swan Hill was a sheet of water, housedeep and water was creeping up to the eaves.Bedraggled survivors huddled together in thebackyards of higher ground. More than 400houses in George (Northey), Cullen, Nicholas,Victoria and Taylor Streets were completelyswamped. It was the worst flood since 1893.Workers at the Campbell Soap workshad to be evacuated. Malcolm Campbell saidthat the water had never risen so rapidly. Araft, consisting of several planks lashed togetherwith an empty soap box on top wasused to rescued workers Winifred Jacksonand Edna Roy while the men, wading or swimming,pushed it to Campbell Street.The water from the reservoir and thereclaimed land in the Mayne Railway yardswere blamed as was the build-up of silt frommany sewers emptying into the creek. After receivinga deputation from residents the LordMayor, Alderman Watson, said that whateverrelief can be afforded, after an investigation,would be carried out if he had anything to dowith it . A scheme was quickly hatched suggestingthe conversion of Breakfast Creek intoa canal. The idea was to construct it from theKelvin Grove industrial area to the BrisbaneRiver. Not only would it alleviate flooding butalso would provide access to port facilities.By April, teams of unemployed reliefworkers attached to the Brisbane City Councilstaff cleared away the vast banks of mangrovesfrom Bowen Bridge to the Albion Sawmills.One resident remarked on the wonderfulnew vista but another was not so pleased. Hewrote to the Brisbane Courier in May.April 1931 - Dug by HandBREAKFAST CREEK SEWER.Sir,Would somebody please present a singleticket to Goodna to the person who originatedthe idea of stripping every vestige ofvegetation from the banks of Breakfast Creek.That stream has always been a sewer, but notan ill-looking sewer - except, perhaps, at lowtide. Its most offensive features, in the formof dead cats, dogs, old bottomless washtubs,hoop iron, and other unconsidered trifles, thatpeople discard into the nearest property thatis not their own, were masked by a fringe ofnot inelegant mangroves. Now, however, allthese blemishes be naked and unashamedbefore the eyes of the world, and the oncecomparatively beautiful stream stands out forwhat it is - a ghastly sewer.By November 1931, Enoggera Dam hadbeen exonerated and the proposed channel tothe Brisbane River had been rejected. It wasproposed in the vicinity of the Swan Hill areato relocate the channel from a point south ofSwan Street to Noble Street. This would entailtwo new cuts, one 300ft long, cutting off a loopand a sharp bend in the creek on the Herstonside, and one 600ft long, cutting across thelower end of Aberleigh Road and eliminatinga loop of the creek approximately three-quartersof a mile long. This alone should consid-Naked Breakfast Creek after the removal of the mangroves Swan Hill on the left. Bowen Bridge right.August Newsletter - Page FIFTEEN