Australian Floods

[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.

[dragoon500ly]

Hmmm, must be intresting to step out the front door to walk the door and find a couple of crocs eying the house!

[Targan]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

Hmmm, must be intresting to step out the front door to walk the door and find a couple of crocs eying the house!

I kid you not, I used to live in a place where if you went swimming it would be a race between the sharks and the crocs over which would get to eat you first.

[Abbott Shaull]

Oh great and Sharks too... Wow...

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by Targan

I kid you not, I used to live in a place where if you went swimming it would be a race between the sharks and the crocs over which would get to eat you first.

Hmmmm, note to self, on any future visit Down Under, be sure to pack something in a 5MW plasma cannon...

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by Targan

I kid you not, I used to live in a place where if you went swimming it would be a race between the sharks and the crocs over which would get to eat you first.

It looks like the sharks are winning this race!!

http://news.yahoo.com/video/odd-1574...video=23739572

Enjoy the link

Mike

[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)

[Mohoender]

Originally Posted by bobcat

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)

This might seem crazy to you but I doubt that this opinion would be shared by someone from Netherlands. Of course, these people know how to design a levee and unless proved otherwise don't neglect them.

[bobcat]

Originally Posted by Mohoender

This might seem crazy to you but I doubt that this opinion would be shared by someone from Netherlands. Of course, these people know how to design a levee and unless proved otherwise don't neglect them.

yeah but in the Netherlands they'd only spend a few thousand on the inquiries. and the focus would be what idiot failed to maintain the damn dam.

and though its been a minute since i've seen any photography of the region(since i can't get that NATO slot) it seems there enough redundancy in their flood control measures to not require nearly as much of a relief effort.

[Legbreaker]

Swimming in crocodile infested waters isn't all that dangerous actually, provided you have a dog...
Toss the dog in first. If it survives the first minute, there's no crocs about (salties apparently prefer dog over human).

For the first 21 years of my life I lived in a town where it flooded annually. Fortunately the flood levees kept the worst of it out, but local rain still caused some issues within the levees. I went back in March 2010 for a few days and was completely flabbergasted to see buildings constructed in a MAJOR floodway. I've seen logs a metre or more in diameter sweeping through and just can't understand the logic behind spending a million dollars plus (per building) to develop such a risky location.

Although the floods up north are covering a large area, locations which haven't even seen rain in years, hundreds of kilometers away are being effected. With road and rail links cut, even washed away, supplies haven't been able to get through.

One of the big problems, which has barely been touched upon in the media over here, is disease and parasites. With all the stagnant water laying about, and the heat of an Australian summer, it's likely to be a bacterial and mosquito heaven in short order...

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by bobcat

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)

Actually, New Orleans is built well inland, but the oil & gas industry has been busy chopping canels in the wetlands south of the city, and then the Army Corps of Engineers in its on-going war on the Mississippi River, severely restricted the flow of silt down into the Mouth of the Mississippi River (the mouth has actually moved well north of were it was in the 19th Century due to the lack of silt) that were the prime factors in the flooding...inadequate and out-dated pumps...certain home-owners associations that sued and won the last time that the Corps of Engineers tried to widen and heighten the levees in the area also played major roles in what happened. Not to mention the sheer stupidity of people building their homes and business at the foot of the levees, when simply walking to the top of the levee (all of 10 minutes) would have showed that the water was within a couple of feet of the top in clear weather, let alone when ole hurricane starts to blow!

Living right across the state line from New Orleans, I got to see ground zero of Katrina up front and personal...to add insult to injury, the Mississippi Gulf Coast got hit worse than New Orleans, had a sizable precentage of its federal aid redirected to New Orleans, and rebuilt faster than New Orleans. Even today, almost 5 years afterwards, there are portions of New Orleans that still have debris piles from Katrina....it does make one wonder just were all of that federal aid went....

[Legbreaker]

Can it get any worse for them?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...section=justin
Brisbane is the captial of Queensland (a state of Australia) and the third largest city in the country. Video of the flash flooding yesterday was just jawdropping and every last drop of that is heading towards Brisbane....

[Targan]

Yeah, NOW is when the Aussies get worried about floods. The situation now is far more serious than when this thread was started. Tomorrow or the next day the city of Brisbane is going to look more like Venice. Nearly 80 people are missing in the state of Queensland already and my suspicion is that many of them will be dug out of the mud or pulled from submerged cars in the coming days. That footage of a wall of water smashing through Toowoomba... devastating.