far too much to absorb {4}
it’s been asked, how the hell do i select the material for tbaoo ? well often i leave the expected items, in the belief that others will do a better job, with more compassion, skill or even some journalistic good sense ( shit, you’re kidding ), so today i say, hang that. i live in queensland and many people, have been asking my bride and i, how are we getting on ?
well, we are being rained on ( heavily ) nearly everyday, all day, for what seems like years now, but we are safe and dry and thankfully not ravaged by the relentless flooding that’s occurring in parts of queensland and other states. the enormity of whole towns being evacuated, homes, businesses, wildlife and stock, crops and infrastructure all being decimated by the torrential flow of water, is heartbreaking. lot’s of people aren’t able to get flood insurance, so they are stuck in their homes hanging on for the next flood and losing everything, every time. some towns have only just got over flooding from a number of weeks or months ago and here they are going through it all again. it’s desperate times for many of these smaller communities, one thing though, people do rally round from all over the country and do help out.
so dear reader, here is some material that shows this natural backlash. of course compared to other disasters around the world, our little country isn’t doing too bad, but everything is relevant. if you’d like to donate to the queensland state government appeal, please do so here below.
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More rain for Qld’s flood-stricken areas
Updated: 23:46, Thursday January 6, 2011
More heavy rain is expected in flood-hit parts of Queensland as Rockhampton contemplates massive clean-up, and St George braces for what’s yet to come.
A low pressure system is dumping heavy rain across some parts of central and southern Queensland already hard hit by the flood crisis.
That’s expected to continue into the weekend.
The central Queensland city of Rockhampton, still in the grip of its worst flood in almost 60 years, saw heavy rain overnight and more of the same is expected into the weekend.
‘This afternoon there will be thunderstorms, that will be the pattern for the next few days,’ senior forecaster Bryan Rolstone told AAP.
‘The thunderstorms could be severe. The storm cells haven’t formed yet … there could be heavy rain associated with it.’
The Fitzroy River peaked at 9.2 metres on Wednesday, flooding 200 homes and affecting 3000 other properties.
It’s since dropped by just 5cm, with residents not expected to be able to return to their homes for some time as flood levels stay above 8.5 metres.
Rockhampton Mayor Brad Carter has said the city could take a year to get back on its feet, and it could be up to two weeks before residents could return to flooded homes.
‘I think that this could drag on for 12 months,’ he told the Nine Network, adding it would take three weeks to reopen the airport.
About 660km south of Rockhampton, the southern inland town of St George is braced for a flood peak of at least 14 metres on Monday or Tuesday, with more rain expected to exacerbate the situation.
That’s about 0.6 metres higher than the 13.39-metre peak seen in March last year, when the area experienced significant flood damage from what was considered a once-in-a-century event.
Balonne Shire Mayor Donna Stewart told the ABC that at 14 metres, only about 30 homes would be affected in St George itself.
She said much work had been done to prepare the community, including building additional levee banks, and there were points where the water would be able to get away.
She said she did not expect 80 per cent of the town to be affected, as some reports have said, and that inundation of properties would be relatively limited.
Deputy Premier Paul Lucas is expected to visit St George later on Thursday.
On Wednesday, aged care residents were evacuated from St George to Brisbane and extra sandbags are being flown in to help residents prepare.
With the flood peak yet to hit, St George resident and Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce was already talking about ways to prevent future disasters, saying new dams were needed.
‘It’s not fair on people’s lives to have water tearing through their homes,’ he told Sky News. ‘It’s not good for our economy to be shut down and lose billions of dollars in production.
‘In the future, I think we need to look at building dams to mitigate the effects of floods.’
He said residents were on edge.
‘We just hope and pray it doesn’t get to 14 metres but we’ve got a plan in case it does,’ he said.
Meanwhile, moderate flood levels are forecast for the Dawson River at the central inland town of Taroom on Friday, extending to the Glebe area during the weekend.
Further downstream at Theodore, Moura and Baralaba, levels are expected to keep falling into the weekend before renewed rises and minor, possibly moderate, flooding next week, the bureau said.
But levels should remain well below the recent high level flood peaks.
The Local Government Association of Queensland said infrastructure repair costs for flood hit councils were going to be ‘off the scale’.
‘We initially thought in the order of $500 million, but it will go much higher than that,’ spokesman Greg Hoffman told the ABC.
Federal Local Government Minister Simon Crean has already approved $77 million in early grants to help councils undertake the most urgent repairs.
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on a stranger note. i’ve been searching for news footage videos and all i seem to find is stupid, self serving platidtudes from the australian media, watch me, i’m beside a flowing flooded river, or walking up to my knees in water. i even had to endure some sensationalistic woman squawking as she was interviewing a guy in a boat ( whilst delivering food to residents ) and spending the entire time fixing here mucken hair. this is really serious, back to you betty in the studio, promos up the “wazoo”, hapless idiots using this onsite crap as a promotional tool to show that their network is better than the others and aiming to prove ( who freakn’n cares ? ) that we ( they ) know and care about “queensland” fuck me dear reader, i’m going to get mad. !!!! looks like fox news is closer than we’d hope.
any-who, lucky i found this uk sky news video piece and it’s dramatically good visual, but why he says sky news sydney as his sign off escapes me ? couldn’t he have just said “sky news australia”.
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