Rain and flood

time

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I don't know how many here realize, but a fair percentage of my State (Queensland) is/was/will be under water. More than 20 people have died - not many compared to an earthquake, but a surprising number to drown in rising water. We have had the worst weather I can remember in my lifetime, even worse than what led to major flooding 36 years ago.

Roads are closed all over the State. This site gives you some idea of the scale, just keep scrolling.

The third 'regional' city, Toowoomba, just got hammered. Among the dead are a mother and son who perished when their car was washed away in the middle of the city! Only the father was rescued in time. Check out some of the photos.

The part that freaks me out is that Toowoomba is 691 meters above sea level - you have to climb over a mountain range to get there.

If Chewy still lives in the Gold Coast hinterland, he's probably not going anywhere right now.

I live in the capital, Brisbane. In December, the central weather station recorded rain for all but 9 of the 31 days in December. A further 3 days were only a couple of millimeters. That still means significant rain for 2 days out of every 3 for an entire month. It's now the 10th day in January and it has rained somewhere in Brisbane every single day so far - my nearest weather station has recorded 9 out of 10.

Brisbane doesn't normally get the huge falls of other parts of the State, but it is built around the banks of the Brisbane River. After the devastation of 1974, two inline dams were built with the dual role of water storage and flood mitigation. They've had to dump water for weeks now, picking up the pace to 170 gigaliters a day - that's comparable to Niagara Falls ...

The dumping adds to the level of the downstream waterways, including the Brisbane River, which leads to more flooding ...

The main dam has a target capacity of 1160 gigaliters, with the theoretical overload margin for flood mitigation at 225% of that. The thing is, it's already at 150%, and apparently the catchment added 1000 gigaliters in just one day (that's nearly twice the volume of water in Sydney Harbour BTW). So one more day of heavy rain could see it overflowing the slipway ...

That would all pump into the Brisbane River, which is already flowing about 4,000 m3/s (350 gigaliters a day).

Four years ago, I lived within 200 meters of the river; now I live near the top of a hill so I can sleep at night.
 

ddrueding

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Wow. I had heard about it on the news, but they never give enough numbers to understand the scale. That is massive. Best of luck.

It flooded here when I was a kid, but the area is so flat that it would need to spread for a hundred square miles before it rose from my street to my house. By then it would have a 10-mile wide path directly to the ocean 10 miles away.
 

Mercutio

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The news reports I had heard have all discussed northeastern Oz as a disaster area, rather than simply Eastern Oz, which is where Brisbane is.

Between this and the flash fires a couple years ago, I suspect Oz is feeling rather put-upon by the weather lately.
 

LunarMist

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Ugh. It's too bad there is no way to catch all that for long term water supply.
 

Chewy509

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If Chewy still lives in the Gold Coast hinterland, he's probably not going anywhere right now.
Still living there, and we're doing quite well as we're on top of a large hill. We still have general road access to the Pacific Motorway**, so are not in any danger of being locked in.

My Uncle who lives in the Brisbane Valley area on the other hand has been flooded in. His property is still above water and in no current danger of being flooded, so he's just taking a few days off work.

My wife just received news though, that one of the main supermarket chains (Woolworths) will stop local store deliveries to most SE QLD stores for the coming week due to transport problems between the warehouses and the local stores.

We've being watching the ABC 24 news channel off and on over the last few days, and it has been heartbreaking seeing all the damage across the state. Also, some areas north of Brisbane (Caboolture and surrounds) have been told to evacuate as waters are expected to go above the 1974 flood heights.

For a detailed report on the 1974 floods see: http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/fld_reports/brisbane_jan1974.pdf
or just do a Google Image search on "Brisbane 1974 flood".

** For those not local, the Pacific Motorway is the main highway between Brisbane and Gold Coast.
 

Pradeep

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The news reports I had heard have all discussed northeastern Oz as a disaster area, rather than simply Eastern Oz, which is where Brisbane is.

Between this and the flash fires a couple years ago, I suspect Oz is feeling rather put-upon by the weather lately.

The problems in Northern and Central Queensland have moved South.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/11/3110689.htm

Glad to hear our Bris-Vegas residents are high and dry.

Economically there's a significant amount of coking coal not reaching global markets.
 

Mercutio

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Near where I grew up in Illinois, there were Hope, Faith and Chastity, one right after the other, each with a single-digit population.

There's also a Hell, Michigan.
 

CougTek

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It's supposed to become even funnier out there by tomorrow, unless the weather reports of earlier this week changed.

They could start a kind of Australian "car surfing" entirely different of the U.S. version.
 

Mercutio

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It is quite a walk from here... Saying this is near me would be like saying that Mark and Groltz are your neighboors.

Distances are different up in Canuckistan. They're in some weirdo frenchy measurement system for one thing and for another we're all convinced that your currency is based on beaver pelts and poutine and that everything north of Toronto, Windsor and Vancouver might as well be Nunavut.
 

Sol

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The seriousness of these floods really came home to me when I heard that there have been sightings of sharks in some areas. It seems like there are often crocs when severe flooding hits northern Australia but sharks are a whole new problem. (On the whole crocs scare me more, but this isn't an either or deal and both is definitely worse)
 

Mercutio

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Basically everything that lives outside and comes from Oz can kill people anyway. I've read that even cuddly little Koalas are vicious bastards, let alone Nature-Guide killing fauna and carnivorous plants.
 

ddrueding

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Distances are different up in Canuckistan. They're in some weirdo frenchy measurement system for one thing and for another we're all convinced that your currency is based on beaver pelts and poutine and that everything north of Toronto, Windsor and Vancouver might as well be Nunavut.

Basically everything that lives outside and comes from Oz can kill people anyway. I've read that even cuddly little Koalas are vicious bastards, let alone Nature-Guide killing fauna and carnivorous plants.

Awesome. I've missed the comedy.
 

Howell

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So what's the reigning theory on the presence of sharks?

They are being flushed out of high alpine lakes or they are swimming upstream through chocolate milk?
 

time

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I thought the shark sighting was implausible, but apparently bull sharks hang around in upstream backwaters to give birth, so it's by no means impossible.

According to Wikipedia, "There are more than 500 bull sharks in the Brisbane River" (normally).
 

time

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Merc's crack about fauna isn't all that outrageous. I've even been attacked by a young possum.

Eastern Brown Snakes are known locally as Common Brown Snakes - the name says it all, unfortunately. They're excellent swimmers and like hanging around waterways.

I wouldn't want to be sharing a slippery roof with them; they're the second most venomous land snake in the world, about 100 times more toxic than a diamond-back rattlesnake. Not as bad as it sounds though because they don't always inject venom, it's usually a small amount and their fangs aren't all that long. You'll still most likely die without medical treatment of course, but it's often not as bad as being bitten by some other Australian snakes.
 

LunarMist

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Opossums sure can fight back, for example against a smaller dog. They have a huge mouthful of teeth and quite a loud growl too!
 

Chewy509

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Basically everything that lives outside and comes from Oz can kill people anyway. I've read that even cuddly little Koalas are vicious bastards, let alone Nature-Guide killing fauna and carnivorous plants.

Yep...

aussie+dangers.jpg
 

time

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I've read that even cuddly little Koalas are vicious bastards, let alone Nature-Guide killing fauna and carnivorous plants.

Many Australian plants are toxic to eat, but some are nasty to even approach. Stinging Trees "cause a painful stinging sensation which can last for days or even months, and the injured area becomes covered with small red spots joining together to form a red, swollen mass." Read the linked article, it's a little reminiscent of "Day of the Triffids".
 

time

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Unlike Brazil, where the devastation was relatively concentrated, most of the bodies from this latest round of Queensland flooding will never be found. One body was found 80km (50 miles) from where the victim disappeared.
 

CougTek

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So...is everything's dry now or is it still the apocalypse? We hear less about the flooding in the News. I don't know if it's because the medias became bored or because the situation improved.
 

time

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The water's going down. Maybe 20,000 houses and 5,000 businesses were damaged (no-one knows yet) in the greater Brisbane area (including the satellite city of Ipswich).

Roads are still cut, but should be re-opened in the next day or two. One notable exception is one of the main arterials into the CBD, where there are fears that it might conceivably collapse into the river (it's on the river bank FFS). Buses and trains should be mostly back next week.

Power is still out to 50,000+ homes, the flooded ones won't get power back for quite some time. Parts of the CBD also won't have power. Anecdotally, Telephone and Internet are probably out for 100,000 homes. Most of those should be fixed in a few days, some are doubtless looking at a month or more.

Modern buildings definitely don't like to be flooded. You're looking at total drywall replacement, cleaning of stud frames, new carpet, new electrical fixtures, entirely new kitchens, wardrobe shelving, interior doors, etc. There are only so many tradesmen to go around so houses will be at least partially uninhabitable for months - if the owners can afford to fix them. Flood is specifically excluded from many insurance policies.
 

LunarMist

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Did those boxes get flooded out or perhaps the post was intended for Something Random? :crnval:
 

time

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Timwhit, you didn't delete the follow up posts - they don't make a lot of sense any more ...
 

mubs

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Sorry guys, I've been out of touch a bit. Always humbling when nature hows who's boss. Really sorry about the devastation. As time has pointed out, getting back to normal will be a very long haul.
 

LunarMist

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I would be more worried about diseases from the standing water, or is that a problem?
 
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