TheBanyanTree: Floods

[Janice Money]

Being as bad as I am at remembering other people's names I can hardly take
offense when mine is forgotten.  Peter, it's Janice.  But, yes, I am
northeast of one flood and northwest of another.

So far, this has been the wettest wet season we have experienced from the
time we moved up in 95.  Since the beginning of September we have had 1.5 to
2.5 times more rainfall per month than the average to give us a total of
just under 1100mm (43.3 inches) and we still have 2 and a half months of the
wet season left.  The frogs love it but their song can be deafening.
Sometimes the cloudbursts are so torrential that not even putting the wipers
on fast, dropping 30kph in speed and turning on the headlights is enough to
make one feel safe on the road.  Everything more than about 2 car lengths
ahead just vanishes into the watery grey.  The pool has gone green because
we can't keep up with getting the chemicals right and, especially with the
current monsoon, the solar hot water system has become something of a
useless roof ornament.  But we've had no flooding.  We've also had nothing
like the fabulous thunder and lightning storms that so entranced me back in
the late 90s - just rain, rain and more rain.

I visited Toowoomba as a child.  My dear uncle Al Holmes came from there
though, at the time, he and my aunty Ed lived in Brisbane, at Yeerongpilly
(which is now flood affected).  He was a Flight Sergeant on a Warwick BV295
flying out of Turnberry in Scotland in WWII.  He got shot down and badly
burned in 1944 and finally died in the late 80s of a Marjolin's ulcer, an
aggressive skin cancer that arose at the site of his facial burns.

Anyway, he took us to Toowoomba to see his parents.  I was fascinated
because it's on the edge of the Darling Downs and we'd been learning about
those in school.  I remember the drive there, seeing the remnants of the
prickly pear forests and, at last, the sight of the plateau where Toowoomba
stands.  It was cold up there, high above the plains.  Remembering that it
is above the plains I found it astonishing to see the video of the flash
flood that tore through Toowoomba taking all those cars with it.  Where did
all that water come from?  The people at Sky News offered a sort of
explanation but it didn't really sink in to my head.

Aunty Ed now lives in a retirement village at Edens Landing, south of
Brisbane and right on the Logan River.  Who knows what will happen there if
the rain keeps falling. 

Yesterday, the bloke I work for told me that his sister works for a branch
of the Queensland Department of Health in an office at Ipswich that went
well and truly under water.  All their medical records are gone.  None were
digitized and that I find about as astonishing as the flooding of Toowoomba.


Janice

-----Original Message-----
From: thebanyantree-bounces at lists.remsset.com
[mailto:thebanyantree-bounces at lists.remsset.com] On Behalf Of Peter Macinnis
Sent: Friday, 14 January 2011 11:49 AM
To: A comfortable place to meet other people and exchange your own
*original* writings.
Subject: Re: TheBanyanTree: Floods

On 14/01/2011 11:51, Tom Smith wrote:
> Roger?

Glub!  Glub!

Only joking.

The known Australians on this list are Anita in Melbourne, Roger in
Canberra, the Woofess in Perth, me in Sydney and Pauline in Darwin. 
There may be others, but that's close to a full list.

I am the closest to the floods, and I think I'm about 600 miles away--it is
a very long drive and most people do it over two days or use several
drivers. Pauline is the one most likely to get foot-rot as they are in their
wet season, but she is northwest of one flood and northeast of another.

They are getting floods west of Anita, but no torrents.

Brisbane has bull sharks in the streets, which people can handle, and no
crocs which is good (too far south), but there is a plague of politicians,
all trying to look as though they aren't there to take advantage of the
situation.  With luck, the bull sharks will get them, but I fear even bull
sharks have to draw the line somewhere.

peter


-- 

   _--|\     Peter Macinnis, science gossip and word herder
  /     \    coach, Australian formation pogo-stick team
  \.--._*<-- originator of the all-terrain penguin-drawn sled
       v     http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/index.htm