Grantham, this is one of the most harrowing tales I've seen, just now on AAP 3:30pm;
A distraught Grantham local says he thought bodies being thrown about in turbulent floodwaters were trying to swim, until he realised they were dead. "You saw arms, hands, grey hair, and that was it, by the time you knelt down you realise they're not swimming, they are already gone," Martin Warburton told the Seven network.
"I can't describe it, I just can't describe it." The married father of a young son spent 12 terrifying hours on a roof awaiting rescue on Tuesday night. "After going through that and seeing bodies float past, thinking that they are trying to swim, you know, because the water was that turbulent it was just throwing them around. "Then you bend down to try and grab them and then you realise that they are already gone." Mr Warburton said he had seen two bodies float past after he took refuge on his roof, but he couldn't say if he knew them. "It was basically just get out, just leave everything ..." he said. "At first I thought I was alright. Then you started seeing houses get ripped off their stumps and washed down the road ... "Then they were slamming into the side of the building and the building was starting to shake." He thought he might die "numerous times", and as lightning slashed the sky the father made the gut-wrenching decision to get off the roof. "It was either that or I was going to get hit by lightning ... "There was basically no way off. I ended up falling off the roof." Mr Warburton swam in the dark to a house behind the local general store, reached it about 3.30am. There were two people inside. "They were just devastated, just so scared. They were stuck in the house and their verandah at the side of the house got taken away, something just slammed into it and knocked the stumps out." He said a rapid response team rescued the trio, and he had since spoken to his wife and son. "All the locals were here to greet us and give us fresh shirts ... everyone's supporting each other."
