Australian Floods

[pmulcahy11b]

Any of our friends down under being affected by these? I wish you luck and hope.

[Snake Eyes]

I saw on the news this morning that a chunk of Oz bigger than France and Germany combined is now under water. We've had our share of rain here in California lately, enough to overflow all our reservoirs and stave off the next drought, but that is some biblical shit right there going on down under. I hope all are staying high and dry. Or at least dry.

[Mohoender]

I join Paul in his wishes. I'm sure that fraternity will be as much a reality there as it was in my place a few months ago.

[TiggerCCW UK]

Hang in down there guys. Saw it on the news myself - crazy weather. And at the same time we'd tens of thousnds of people with no water at all here in Belfast, some of them for up to two weeks, due to burst and frozen pipes.

[General Pain]

to my Australian friends.

[weswood]

Good luck from me also. And to our thirsty Irish brethren.

[dragoon500ly]

best of luck!! may you and yours stay safe!

[Targan]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Any of our friends down under being affected by these? I wish you luck and hope.

There are currently floods on opposite sides of the Australian continent, although both areas are in the northern (tropical) areas. The floods in the north of my state, Western Australia, are mostly in a region which is very sparsely populated. Bear in mind Australia only has around 21 million people but we live on an entire continent. Population densities over most of the continent are very low. The floods in the NE of the continent are more serious because they cover a wider area and there are more people living in the area affected.

The truth of it is that Australia is a land of extremes. An area will go for 10 or 15 years without rain and then when the rain comes it just won't stop and you get floods. I'm not sure if you guys in the northern hemisphere are seeing any news footage of the floods but if you are you will see that many of the houses in the flooded parts of Queensland are built on stilts. Tropical cyclones and floods are a part of life in that area of the country.

[Rainbow Six]

As others have said, I hope all our Australian friends are doing OK...

Targan, I haven't seen any TV news today, but for the last couple of days the Australian floods have been either first or second item, at least on Sky News...

[dragoon500ly]

And to the everlasting shame of US news...the lead story today is the Brett Favre and the NY Jets are being sued because Favre sent racy text messages to a Jets employee.

This must be why I watch BBC America for my news fix.

[pmulcahy11b]

I just heard on the news that the flooded areas are suffering from an influx of snakes and crocodiles...yikes!

[Targan]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

I just heard on the news that the flooded areas are suffering from an influx of snakes and crocodiles...yikes!

Oh yeah, the crocs love it when the floods come! All the young males head out to look for new territories of their own. They can travel really long distances in the water. There are confirmed stories of crocs having swum as far as various pacific islands a long way off the Australian coast.

Snakes, meh. Snakes are a part of life here. There are snakes capable of killing you in lots of suburban back yards all over Australia. Most aren't aggressive.

The moral of the story is: -
Don't build your home on a floodplain, no matter how cheap the land - unless you build it on stilts

Very true. Still, the flood levels are so high in some parts of Queensland that even the houses on stilts are facing inundation. Farming on a floodplain might be very productive but you should build your dwelling on the highest point of land possible in a flood prone area.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

To add more to what Targan has said, the floods rate as news here obviously but they don't have the fear factor ramped up on them because they are a semi-regular occurrence - it's just that they occur once every 20 years (give or take 5 years) or in some cases every 50 years (give or take 10 years).
People who've lived in those regions for 40+ years tend to refer to these events as 20 year or 50 year floods (for obvious reasons).

It's a cycle that's been going on for literally forever but it gets very dramatic here because some people seem to think that if a flood is only likely to occur once in twenty years then it's not going to happen. These are the same people you see on the news screaming for government assistance and generally making out the story to be far worse than it is when the flood actually occurs.

The moral of the story is: -
Don't build your home on a floodplain, no matter how cheap the land - unless you build it on stilts.

[bobcat]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

The moral of the story is: -
Don't build your home on a floodplain, no matter how cheap the land - unless you build it on stilts.

gee like those crazy people that built a major city below sea level right next to the gulf of mexico and then insist on spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money to figure out why it keeps flooding ever time someone sneezes in that direction.

(yeah im never moving to new orleans)