Holt Family Memorial Tribute Onlinetributes.com.au

AS THE wind and rain gathered pace on Friday afternoon, Roslyn Bragg, 29, had no idea it would soon turn into a storm - the worst storm in three decades.

As was the usual routine on a Friday afternoon, the mother from Chittaway Bay on the Central Coast packed her daughters, three-year-old Madison and two-year-old Jasmine, along with her nephew, Travis Bragg, 9, into the car to pick up the girls' dad, her long-term partner, Adam Holt, from work.

She ran through the rain to the car, juggling children's umbrellas, and strapped all three kids in. They picked up Mr Holt, a 30-year-old mechanic, and headed home to Ceros Close, navigating increasingly treacherous conditions.

Earlier that day, another couple had struggled to drive through the belting rain and lashing winds. Retirees Robert and Linda Jones left their Clarence Town home in the Hunter Calley in the morning, hopped in their red four-wheel-drive and set out for Newcastle to buy some weekend groceries.

The couple, 60 and 50 years old respectively, did everything together. They had worked at the same hospital, went to the local bowling club as a pair (he liked cards, she liked bingo) and did shopping runs together.

The Joneses stopped just before the town's bridge, perched over a dangerously swollen river, where a queue of cars was forming, and discussed with other drivers whether it was safe to proceed. They decided they would - that's what four-wheel-drives are for, after all - but they made a fatal error, and were swept away in a surge of water.

When Mr Jones didn't turn up as usual at 5pm for his Friday night card games at Clarence Town Sport and Recreation Club, his mates John Knight and Blue Lister knew something was wrong.

"We played cards every Friday night without fail," Mr Lister said. "If Jonesy was going to be late he would call, but when he was nowhere to be seen we started putting two and two together."

Meanwhile, Roslyn Biggs and Adam Holt battled up the Old Pacific Highway near Somersby. As they crossed a stretch of road - which locals later said had been damaged and sinking for years - the waters of Piles Creek channelled under the road, surged and opened up a huge fissure. The family's Ford Festiva crashed into the gaping hole, later measured at 10 metres wide and 30 metres deep.

Witnesses said onlookers ran down the embankment and into the bush in an effort to save the family, but whatever the truth of those unconfirmed reports, it seems the young parents had tried to save the children. When their mangled car was found late on Friday night, the child restraints in the back seat had been loosened. No one remained in the car.

On the day the family died, it was raining heavily and ahead of them water flooding down Piles Creek had flowed out from the perforated galvanised iron pipes, further eroding fill beneath the road as it had been doing for years.

This time the embankment gave way, creating a hole 10 metres wide and 40 metres deep, visible but not obvious for what it was for approaching cars. One driver told the coroner's inquest he thought the black line he saw in front of him was "a python across the road".

Several drivers did stop, and one driver, Dale Sharp, put his hazard lights on on the southern side and flagged down other road users approaching him. But nobody did it on the northern side, and one driver who arrived and saw what it was was travelling back when Mr Holt passed him.

According to the evidence, Mr Holt had been drinking and had consumed some marijuana, a combination that produced an adverse effect greater than the total effects of alcohol and marijuana when taken separately - enough to significantly impair his driving ability.

Mr Holt saw the culvert and applied his brakes, but it was too late. With the car sinking into the water, he got out of it and appealed to people at the top for help. The parents unbuckled their children's restraints and tried to save them. But before anything could be done all five were swept from the car and drowned.

The Department of Main Roads had issued a circular in 1972 stressing the need to protect corrugated iron pipes from the scouring effect of water and grit which eroded the rubber coating and exposed the metal. A prescribed solution was to line the inside of the lower part of the pipes with concrete.

The Old Pacific Highway section at Somersby was built in 1981 to 1983 to allow the F3 Freeway to follow its prescribed route. But the Old Pacific Highway's galvanised iron pipes at Piles Creek remained unlined and subject to the scouring effect of the water.

A letter from the Roads and Traffic Authority's senior scientific officer, Peter Searl, in 1984 highlighted the problem when a section of the F5 Freeway at Bargo, south of Sydney collapsed within six months of construction. He recommended that concrete lining be added to the pipes to prevent that from happening.

In 1986, an RTA divisional engineer recommended concrete lining for galvanised iron pipes under the F3 freeway and that was done. But nothing had been done to the Somersby section of the Old Pacific Highway, though there is evidence that one RTA engineer, John Francis, might have taken the matter up with the Newcastle office of the RTA.

The streets of Newcastle were gridlocked as families took their children to see the marvel of the Pasha Bulker, which savage seas wedged further into the sand. A salvage team was lowered onto the carrier to work out how to protect it from breaking up and leaking toxic waste onto the reef.

The Wyong River burst its ranks and 400 people from Maitland and 100 from rural areas around Singleton and the Central Coast were told they must evacuate before midnight, before the expected second surge of the storm hit. The army helped move the frail and elderly.

Yesterday, as the Maitland River threatened to burst its levees, more tragic discoveries were made. The bodies of Ms Bragg and Mr Holt were taken from Piles Creek to join their daughters' bodies at the morgue.

Fiona Holt, the sister of Adam, aunt to Madison and Jasmine, said yesterday the entire extended clan was mourning the tragedy together.

"I mean, it's a massive loss for all of us," she said tearfully. "What can I say? It's not, it's not fair."

The family's car was towed from the creek. Superintendent Max Mitchell said: "I'd like to think the family didn't suffer but ... that's speculation." Anthony Fahey, a neighbour and friend of the young family, said Mr Holt and Ms Bragg, who worked at the Wella hair care factory at Somersby, were "hard workers" who "played car tag" to meet work commitments and care for their daughters.

"One would be coming and the other would be going, but they loved doing family things together and they were always involved in the neighbourhood gatherings and parties here," Mr Fahey said.

Travis Bragg spent many weekends with Roslyn Bragg, his mother's sister, and her family. He was a good cricketer and soccer player.

Adam Holt was a favourite of Travis and the neighbourhood boys, such as Josh and Nathan Fahey, because of a remote-control car he played with in the street.

Mr Fahey said: "Adam was a good bloke, an ordinary bloke, a hard worker who loved family and fishing and who didn't have much time for anything else."