Our place is on the biggest hill in the area- we are only moments away from those pics, but we are another 20 meters upwards. So safe and dry, just cut off. We have a family of 4 people and 4 cats currently trying to make their way round back roads to us form a nearby suburb- but from what I could tell this morning during my walk, they won't be able to make it in- their house is low lying and already in water, so they have to try.
Just found this photo on facebook posted by a random friend of my dads. I'm about 90% sure that the photo is of a friends yard. Heh, and another one of the same house. I laughed. good gallery
I live as far east in Brisbane as possible (next to the Ocean) on a high suburb, so I'm safe. My old MMA gym was in one of the areas hit, it's fucking crazy to see the water level in Brisbane river rise by like 10 metres. Biblical shit. Hope everyone's safe. Irony is; if you woke up today in my house after a week in a coma and walked outside, you'd call me fucking crazy for saying that we're experiencing the worst flooding in our history. It's a perfect summer day.
Personally, I'm good. The Gold Coast itself is usually isolated from the worst of the weather (places like Ipswich, near Scootah, cop the worst of it). Also, I'm high up on a hill. If the water starts lapping at my front door, I'll be waving to Noah as he floats past. However, our work has offices in places like Ipswich, Toowoomba, Aspley and Bundaberg.... all of which are pretty glub glub at the moment. I'm not bothering to find out the status of these as people are too preoccupied saving their own skins at the moment, and I don't really give a shit about some computers and paperwork as long as they and their families are safe. If the weather keeps up, the Gold Coast is in for some shit though. Our dam is at capacity, and the catchments are sodden. They just went from a 1200 megalitre per day blowoff to 8000 megalitres per day (that's going from 317,006,461 gallons to 2,113,376,409 gallons). There's a distinct possibility of major flood if the weather keeps going the way it's trending. I was actually talking about this with my brother and dad on the weekend. I used to spend a lot of time looking at building, construction and canal/river levels when I was doing legal development work. Where I am, generally, is old river delta and sand banks. There's so much floodplain here it's not funny...and now a lot of it has housing sitting on it. If this weather keeps up, there's a lot more pain coming. Also, water supply is becoming a major issue as flood water is dirty and water treatment plants are getting backed up and contaminated. Provision of clean water in any flood period is a major concern.
Jesus, the race track was in a pretty badly hit area, they're cutting to shots of exhausted horses who are holding their heads out of the water by resting them on the roofs of flooded houses. They're also cutting to the major sporting stadium in town, which is basically a pool now. Heh, just saw Nikki and her girlfriend on the news when they cut to footage from helicopters, that was taken while the girls were out taking the photos posted above. Heh. The Bremmer river is tidal, and connects to the ocean, so there are regularly Bullsharks in the river. The Bullsharks have been spotted cruising around the flooded streets now. With a bit of luck, they'll meet the Looters who've also been spotted. news link.
Looters... Scum of the fucking earth, i hope the sharks get them or better yet this fellow: Not sure on where that image was taken (i saw it in The Chive random gallery), ive not seen it in any of the news stories or galleries but even if its a fake its a very real danger for you guys in QLD: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/09/3109045.htm Best of luck for anyone stuck in this shit, i hope you and yours get through this safely. EDIT: Apparently the image was taken in Gympie
Flood day indeed. As I posted in the rant and rave thread, I still had to go to work which ended up being pointless as we just looked at flood photos all morning and then walked around the city looking at the water. I'll be heading into town with my camera gear early tomorrow to catch the 4am flood peak and will hopefully have some pretty pictures to share with you all tomorrow night. I then plan to go to work in boardshorts and gumboots. And a business shirt and tie. Edit: Spotted this on the Police facebook page at work today. They could have been advertising flood relief charities and the like, but they seem to have followed a slightly different strategy:
I have to give you guys credit... you, as a country, seem to have maintained your sense of humour during this.
The flooding was so bad that it managed to knock out my internet connection in Townsville which is approx 1400km north (850ish miles) away by severing the fiber links between Brisbane and Sydney. It managed to knock out all of the Queenslands services from my particular ISP. Luckily they managed to work something out, and everything was back in about 3 hours. Another angle is this.... not too many years ago, the damns that serve the South East Corner were at below 20% capacity, now most of them are 150%+ capacity. Wivenhoe damn - 193% Somerset damn - 176% link: <a class="postlink" href="http://maps.google.com.au/maps?ftr=crisisresponse.kmlpanel:src=queensland_floods&cad=konbit:queensland_floods,pos:0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://maps.google.com.au/maps?ftr=cris ... oods,pos:0</a> Crazy stuff!
One of the many things that makes me so proud to be an Aussie I think this picture from the 1974 floods says it all really(XXXX is a Queensland beer) Spoiler This one of 4 blokes 'rescuing' cartons beer on what appears to be a homemade raft is good as well (now that kind of looting i can understand...) Spoiler
It would suck to be living up there and having your home and belongings messed up ..... BUT I live all the way down in Melbourne around 1700 klms (approx 1000 miles) away and even though its only been a couple of days , I'm already tired of the blanket coverage of the floods on all the TV stations. Put something distracting and upbeat on for fucks sake , its not like Melbournites can do much about what is going on up there.
I'm from Sydney, so I've just been watching it on the news, which is literally covering the thing all day. As my work/pub is fairly quiet, I've basically just spent the entire last two days watching the whole thing unfold. Today I had the idea to maybe fly up and help with some volunteer work for a few days. I'm only 21, so I'm still pretty young, so that also means I have basically zero responsibilities. It'd be as easy as getting a week's worth of shifts covered, catching the $60 flight, and heading over. It'd be an experience to remember too, and I'd actually get to feel like I'm doing something worthwhile. And despite how easy and awesome I think all of this sounds, none of my friends who I've asked to go want to join me. We'd just be spending the time in front of the television, playststion, work or the pub anyway. So why not help out some other people for a legimitimate good cause? Pretty disappointing to be honest
Great pics. That attitude is still very much alive here today. The number of sightseers in the CBD today - and the fact that everywhere was closed except the pubs down the main street, which were bustling - was proof. Here's another one: in the '74 floods of roughly the same magnitude, the Royal Mail hotel just outside Brisbane was still serving beer to people in boats from it's second storey verandah: (From here) I've seen pretty much the same photo but with the water level right up to the second storey, but I can't seem to find it now. So are we. We've had plenty of warning, the news channels are just repeating the same things. Only thing to do now is sit back, crack open a cold one, and watch shit get destroyed.
You could always play the Channel Nine Flood Coverage Drinking Game, of course you might go blind in the first 15 minutes.
While most of Queensland is under water, the other side of the country (Perth) is battling massive bush fires. I also heard a flash flood warning for Melbourne this morning. My cousin lives in Brisbane. We haven't heard from him in ages, phones are down. He managed to post on his facebook this afternoon that their power had finally been turned off and they were hoping to get to the Gold Coast tonight. Heard from him a few hours ago that they had to leave most of their stuff in the house and they don't expect their home to be there when they can finally go back. The Aussie's have certainly pissed Mother Nature off!
Scootah, I'm disappointed PM Gillard hasn't been incorporated into the drinking game. You'd be legless as a result of her boring cliche's and hand movements without any of the other tasks.
A friend of mine lives just next to the CBD in Brisbane, up on top of a hill. Where she is, is safe. However, she's a silly workaholic and went to work today to find she was the only one there. This afternoon I got a text from her to say her street is cut off and she couldn't get home. Luckily, she managed to find a way to get to her brother's house. And if I have to listen to "Ostralians" being drawled out of our Prime Minister's mouth one more time, I won't be taking 5 drinks, I'll be sculling a case of vodka and waiting it out. And the stupidity of the reporting of this thing is grating on me something fierce. One news agency actually starting saying that "whole towns are wiped off the face of the map". Drama much? They're still there... you just need a scuba tank and a serious weight belt to nip down to the corner store for a loaf of bread. Yeah, that's us. But I think it's going to start wearing thin soon. Trucks can't through, which means no food, no fuel and especially, no beer, will be getting through. I'm seeing reports of service stations running dry already. If we run out of beer, things are going to get fucked up real quick.
It's a stolen game. Much as I wish I could take credit, I'll instead settle for blaming the actual author. I'm not the heavy buy into a politicians sort anyway, but I've never had less confidence in the PM than when Gillard is mumbling plattitudes about the flood. I seriously wonder if she's stoned on flu meds or something - she's so fucking out of it in all the recent interviews.