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Queensland Floods.


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Hi.

 

I was wondering if any of our Australian friends have been affected by those terrible floods. I hope you guys down under are all keeping safe. Sadly, there have been a couple of fatalities.

 

I can't imagine what it's like, being flooded to that extent. Must be frightning, worrying, and annoying all in one.

 

My thoughts are with them all.

 

Steve. :)

Edited by cider_steve
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I live in Queensland, but the flooding is in the more remote regions and I live in the city. Queensland is about 700,000 sq miles, so it has a lot of contrasting areas (beaches/vibrant city/harsh outback).

 

I have a few friends who are from smaller towns but I believe their families are all ok.

 

It's a terrible situation for the farmers, they're almost constantly in drought. I am not sure they wanted quite this much rain.

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Im living in a southern state in Australia so it hasnt affected me directly. An aunt of mine was flying down from queensland and they closed her local airport because of flooding, but thats as close as I've been to the disaster.

 

I have vague plans of heading up there before uni starts, but by then fortunately it should all be over, and in any case I would be staying in the city where it hasnt been affected.

Edited by Dragon Brother
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I'm glad you guys are out of the way of danger. It must be terrifying to be in the middle of something like that. I've never experienced anything like a true "flood" here in Montreal.

 

:blink:

 

gogo

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Does Australia have a system of dams, leveesm, dikes, flut walls, ... ? Or is the country to young for such a work?

 

Imaginating that the flood walls/dams in europe developed over more than 1000 years, they are a generation work. And the flooded area in australia is like france and germany together. So its not like we know in europe trying to keep flood walls/dams intact. Something were army, citizens, firefighters build long lines of sandbags and stuff like this to fortify existing dams. And there are no australian documents reaching back for hundreds of years how much rain/flood had appeared in different years.

 

In 1362 germany suffered from the "Grosse Manntränke" = great drowning of men, when high storm tide, summed up with a cyclone and an inland rivers flood from lot of rain. Estimations are 25000-100000 people drown. Same area today would be millions. For the coming centuries Deichgrafen (translates dike earls) had command over the dams,

 

What I know from smaller local floodings: even if you can save the farm animals, most stray and hay is wasted and you have to slaughter the animals because you can't feed them.

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Just an update on the floods. The situation has worsened since last week and now the major rural towns are being hit hard. Most recently Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley.

 

Over 200,000 people have been affected. 8 people have been confirmed dead and at least 11 more are missing. Approximately $5 billion worth of damage.

 

Chattius, yes, we have many dams. Unfortunately most of the time they are running low, but as soon as we get heavy rain like this... well, a picture says a thousand words.

 

 

a19_26464983.jpg

 

Collection of photos available here: http://www.boston.co...n_flooding.html

 

Here is a video from the main streets of Toowoomba show just how much water there is..

 

Edited by dreeft
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I am so very sorry, both for the loss of yet more lives, and for the destruction of your country.

 

We are hearing on the news, that even Brisbane itself is being affected. Something like 6000 folk are being evacuated from Brisbane according to the news. And yet, they are predicting that it will get even worse. Hard to believe.

 

Be safe and well.

 

Steve.

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I am so very sorry, both for the loss of yet more lives, and for the destruction of your country.

 

We are hearing on the news, that even Brisbane itself is being affected. Something like 6000 folk are being evacuated from Brisbane according to the news. And yet, they are predicting that it will get even worse. Hard to believe.

 

Be safe and well.

 

Steve.

 

Latest I have heard is 10 dead and 90 missing. And the lord mayor of brisbane said the following in regards to flooding of brisbane itself:

new flood modelling indicated 19,700 residential properties and 3500 commercial premises in 2100 streets were likely to be flooded in the city.

 

It really is such a tragedy at the moment. Our country seems to go through such extremes...Black Saturday fires 2 years ago and now this...

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Hey guys, just a quick update.

75% of Queensland has now been declared a natural disaster zone.

 

Massive flooding in the CBD, power has been switched off and most staff told to stay away.

 

My parent's place has taken on about 2' of water in their lower level and it's supposed to get higher. We moved a lot of their stuff out yesterday, so hopefully the damage has been minimised, but we will need to wait until the water recedes to see. Fingers crossed.

 

Here is a photo out the front of their house about 3pm yesterday. Everything that is water should be road, beyond the trees you can see the river. The water has risen about 2m since this shot.

 

5347248103_f3aa94e374_z.jpg

 

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Wow, insane. My little comment about washing the car in the rain I guess can be ignored, that is if the car hasn't floated away.

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The nature class of my second daughter is doing referats abiut nature disasters: fires, flooding, storms, ... Everyone got a different theme and she got drainage divides, water divides, watersheds or however they are called in english.

 

The one of my area (between rivers Lahn and Dill, northwestern quadrant of map) looks like:

 

710px-Water_divide_Rhine_Weser.png

 

A watershed map shows where water from a place will end and it used to predict danger of floodings. If a rain storm happens over a watershed border then the water will be divided into 2 or more rivers. If the rainstorm happens over a single watershed then whole water will end in a single river, higher risc of flooding. So the place of my parents is a bit west of Wetzlar where Lahn and Dill join. So a rain storm which is trapped by mid mountain regions between Lahn and Dill will put all the water to the Lahn river down from Wetzlar.

 

In southeastern quadrant of map is the Vogelsberg (bird mountain), one of the biggest shield vulcanoes in europe. A rainstorm which is trapped at this place will send water to all the rivers in all directions which have a spring at the vulcano. So close to no flooding danger there.

 

What I want to ask: We do hard to find watershed maps of Australia. Is there a big watershed near Brisbane?

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Ahh, thanks. So Brisbane has a big catchment area which is narrow at ocean.

 

map_group_brisbane.gif

 

 

A reason why I a minterested in it personally: When I just started at army we were send to the Oder river flooding 1997.

 

From Wiki:

The flood of the Oder River in July 1997 affected Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic, taking lives of 114 people and causing material damages estimated at $4.5 billion. It was one of the most disastrous floods in the history of Poland, where it was named the Millennium Flood.

King Frederick the Great initiated the drainage of the Oderbruch (bruch = brook). The work was carried out in the years 1746-1753, a large tract of marshland being brought under cultivation, said to be a complete province conquered in peace.

 

The dams at the Oderbruch build a system of polder and it was discussed to give up some polder with smaller villages to save the big towns. Blowing certain dams away, so some polder would be flooded, delaying the flood wave so it wouldn't add up with one from a side river. I was in the demolition unit but luckily it ended up for my unit to carry sandbags, even some polder were volunteerly flooded by other units.

 

Was hard to see in the faces of the people in this polder when telling them that the polder may have to be flooded to prevent bigger damage to more people. So I was quite happy when we worked hand in hand with them to save a dam instead blowing it away.

 

Even the re-union was 7 years ago, it was the first time for me in former eastern germany. Former visits to West-berlin were just on isolated transit roads which didn't allow contact to people in eastern germany.

Edited by chattius
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This is very bad news, indeed. Dreeft - I hope your parents are OK, and that their home is not too badly damaged from this. Best wishes.

 

 

I feel very fortunate to live in an area of the world that has very small possibilities for severe natural disasters. No earthquakes, tsunami, avalanches, hurricanes/cyclones, landslides, volcanoes, etc. Thunderstorms are the worst that can happen; almost every year there are a few that do manage to produce 'microbursts' - like an instantaneous tornado that can cause some damage (ie remove whole or partial roof from a house, etc). A number of years ago, there were 2 actual tornados spawned from a thunderstorm, but they only managed to knock down a few trees in the forest, being limited to uninhabited areas. The region of Ontario I live in (Muskoka) is just about the highest point in this province, so no real threat of flooding.... just the possibility of a fast melt in the springtime that will put a few inches of water into some peoples' basements. No pickup trucks floating down the street. :oooo:

Edited by essjayehm
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dreeft been watching this on the news...I can't wrap my head around how big and widespread this is :( I hope you were able to save all the important stuff from your parents house (documents/pictures/heirlooms etc). And thankfully you had time to get them out safely. It's really hard knowing what to say (although I know there is nothing really I can say). My prayers go out to you, your parents and all affected by the floods. Stay safe my friend.

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Thank you guys, your support is appreciated. 1smile.gif

 

The water has stopped rising and is slowly receding. Massive amounts of damage to many homes, businesses and roads.

 

My parents house rose to within 2-3 inches of the floor boards for the living level. Everything was moved off the lower level, so only minor losses. Very lucky.

 

15 dead, 61 missing at this stage. 30,000 properties affected.

 

The river rose about 15 feet total. The cleanup process is going to take forever. sad.gif

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I remember that 1997 the main problem were molds and wood rot. Firefighters and house cleaning companies had not enough 'drying blowers' for all the affected houses. People trying to buy some on their own found sold out shops. People who were living along the river had their own ones since they were used to suffer from floodings (but normally way smaller ones). It were the people in the polder land who feld save from floodings before and had no pumps, drying blowers on their own. Adding to their problems was that the houses there weren't build to stay in water for a longer time.

 

If I recall right 1997 uin germany were more people in hospital because of mold toxines months after the flood than were injured during the flooding.

 

Out of my experience its best to remove the floor boards if they were below water for a longer time. It will speed up drying the house, less danger of molds.

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  • 3 weeks later...

At firefighters we were drying hoses after fighting a burning house 2 days back in a neighbour village. We talked about an email we got from THW. The THW is a disaster relief organisation controlled by the German federal government. 99% of its members are volunteers. The THW in our district is specialized in flood fighting and was in New Orleans at Kathrina (I think making the pumps at Superdome working) and at several river floodings in europe. It seems they are on high alert to be send to Australia and so firefighters would have to change their disaster organisation in case they are send and something would happen in germany while they are away.

 

So if you still read the forum and are not evacuated yet:

Will this hurricane/cyclone Yasi hit the flooded area of Queensland? Are you in the danger zone?

I read that the cyclone hits at high tide and the land probably still full of water from the previous flooding?

Edited by chattius
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Thank you for digging this up Chattius, I forgot to mention that my family were all fine. Minor losses and the insurance is paying for everything (very lucky, a lot of people have been denied). It took us about 5 days solid working to clean up, many people were still going when we were done.

 

Yasi is up on the Northern Coast of Queensland. There are some reasonable sized towns up there, Cairns and Townsville are looking to be the worst. I believe it it scheduled for 10pm tonight (3-4 hours from now). I am fine, Brisbane is quite a distance from it's expected path.

 

 

Unfortunately, I don't know much about what is going on. I have been working very solidly for the last few days and have had my head in the sand.

 

 

This is the most interesting link I've seen regarding it: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/special-reports/how-cyclone-yasi-compares-around-the-world/story-fn7rxoal-1225998850720

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Glad to hear that you only suffered minor damage from the floods Nick.

 

My thoughts go out to all of those in the direct face of cyclone yasi tonight....I dread to think of what news there will be when I wake up tomorrow.

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