Flood Suckiness

[PepperElf]

they weren't working fast enough,

it's amazing how some of those people actually think issues like that will just be over in a heart beat, as if you could just flip a switch and have everything fixed.

sounds like the same morons who scream at airlines because the snow closed the airport

[EricKei]

But one passenger was talking loudly on her phone about how 'unacceptable' it was for the delay...

Hey lady,...

..."We'll be glad to open the door and let you off right here, if you like..."

[bainsidhe]

I remember when California had the huge fires and the stories were essentially the same. "How dare you evacuate when the whole city is in flames!!!" blargle rant blargle.

[Shalom]

A little off topic here, but I've been wondering. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I've always thought of Australia as a place that's perpetually hard up for water. The middle of the continent is desert; there isn't any real source of water except rainfall. I've heard rants from people living there about their neighbors watering their lawns when there hadn't been rain in too damn long. They wouldn't be talking about building expensive desalination plants, or even silly-season stuff like sawing off a big chunk of Antarctica and towing it north with tugboats, unless they really needed the water.

So now there's an abundance of rainfall; so much so, in fact, that it's overflowing everywhere and causing floods. I have to wonder, is there anything they can do to hold on to some of that and save it for when they need it? Fill up every tank they can find, maybe pump the excess into abandoned mines for storage, that kind of thing. Seems kind of a shame to let it just run into the ocean, when a few months from now the farmers will be needing it for their crops.

[Skeen]

And I thought my state was the arrogant one.....-_-

Victoria?

LOL Sorry, sorry - Mr. Skeen is from SA, so you could say that I hear quite a bit of Vic-bashing. Especially during cricket season. I'm pretty sure the state motto is "Kick a Vic" but I'm not a native so I'm not 100% on that.

[raw456]

Well, no plague of locusts, anyway....

...

Actually, we have had that too

[Damien]

well, I am in a small town on a hill, and pretty much cut off - all areas around me are either flooded or being evacuated...

Several houses have been washed away. the highway is cut in many places and shut down.

My backyard is a swamp. Just watching that creek behind the property - it is already up and flowing pretty quick, but not too deep.

[Seshat]

So now there's an abundance of rainfall; so much so, in fact, that it's overflowing everywhere and causing floods. I have to wonder, is there anything they can do to hold on to some of that and save it for when they need it?

We have dams on almost every permanent river in the nation; one of our earlier big engineering projects was the Snowy Mountains Scheme, a massive water diversion and storage plan.

Just about everyone middle class and higher owns a water tank by now - certainly those who love their gardens do.

The mines are already filling up, due to the flooding, and the water in them will fall through to the aquifers. Which we do use. We are trying to design our farms to retard water flow, thus encouraging floodwater to go into the soil and thus eventually into either aquifers or plants.
There's research into capturing stormwater by various methods, and other research into filtering and recycling wastewater (ie, water that's gone through the sewerage system). Artificial swamps or 'rain gardens' are both being experimented with as ways to filter and treat 'dirty' water to make it at least useful for non-drinking uses.

The big problem is that as part of the El Nino/La Nina climate phenomenon (aka 'Southern Oscillation'), we can have ten to twenty years of drought at one time.

Imagine finding a place to store twenty years of drinking water for an entire nation!

Well, no plague of locusts, anyway....

That's my state. (Victoria)

My best friend has a small collection of locusts from the plague. And we've been getting instructions in the paper on what to do if you're driving and caught in the locust plague. (Stop, keep the windows up, wait till they move on.)

[Supermarket Slave Girl]

The property I live on at the moment has 3 water tanks and roughly 26 dams( We rely on rainwater for everything the place is too far out of town) on 2,500 acres of land.

Water tanks are full, dams are full which is great because we have goats and pigs and a whole heap of other wildlife that depend on those dams.

The emus are pretty damn nasty if you get near them though

[fireheart]

The property I live on at the moment has 3 water tanks and roughly 26 dams( We rely on rainwater for everything the place is too far out of town) on 2,500 acres of land.

Water tanks are full, dams are full which is great because we have goats and pigs and a whole heap of other wildlife that depend on those dams.

The emus are pretty damn nasty if you get near them though

Don't forget cassowaries. The emu's bad-ass cousin. I mean that, literally. One of their kicks can do a huge amount of damage.

[Supermarket Slave Girl]

Ah yes cassowaries, don't have any of them on my land, but yes they are nasty

When my hubby drives to work in the morning, just driving down the road we live on he plays dodge the roo every morning, one kangaroo took out the headlight and dented the side paneling of the passenger side door, when they jump out in front of you there not much you can do.

And the bastards are everywhere.

[Kogarashi]

When my hubby drives to work in the morning, just driving down the road we live on he plays dodge the roo every morning, one kangaroo took out the headlight and dented the side paneling of the passenger side door, when they jump out in front of you there not much you can do.

And the bastards are everywhere.

So...they're like our deer, then?

[Damien]

went to the supermarket here (remember, I am in a cut off community in the devastated Lockyer Valley) - there was a queue of over 100 people (this town barely has 1200 total) and people were arguing etc.

The store is out of milk, bread, fresh food etc... what we get is brought in by helicopter, when they can.

One old hag was whinging that she'll run out of timtams and why aren't the helicopters bring things like that for her...

Lady, there are 90 or so missing in this area, there are people totally stranded...

I just had to walk away... i was utterly disgusted.

[RootedPhoenix]

...there's flooding and some lady needs...some baked good?! What...I..I don't even...

[Damien]

but thankfully she is in a minority.

The mayor of Ipswich made an awesome statement on national TV this morning:

'Looters should be used as flood markers'