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fuagf

12/31/10 12:11 AM

#121738 RE: StephanieVanbryce #121737

Yes, it's terrible, days before flood subsides in many places, and maybe
months for some before things get back to normal, on radio yesterday.

Wow, bigger than France and Germany combined, never thought of it like that.

Take smaller countries and you could have many completely under water.

It is ugly and a lousy Christmas/New Year for many.

Thank you, will have a look at yours now
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fuagf

12/31/10 3:38 AM

#121742 RE: StephanieVanbryce #121737

Same country, but priorities could hardly be wider ..

While in flood ravaged Queensland the army moves into Emerald, and the Woolworths Center shuts, and while
water is still rising in Rockhampton, down south most minds and most money is directed toward other things ..

"Hot for the fireworks: thousands join crush at Opera House

Temperatures in the 30s and 40s are expected in most capital cities tonight." .. Short video inside ..

"Laptops with internet connection, stretcher beds and food glorious food - whoever
said waiting for hours on end in soaring temperatures in a crowd couldn't be fun?

Thousands of people have claimed a spot around the Sydney Opera House to get a harbour side view of tonight's New Year fireworks."

"New year celebrations will be bigger, better and that's just security

Several thousand police and security guards will patrol the nation's party hot spots tonight in unprecedented numbers.

In Sydney, where more than one million revellers will descend on the harbour foreshore to witness the
fireworks display, about 2600 officers will be on patrol, up from 1800 five years ago. .. continued .."

Best wishes to all flooded out Queenslanders, radio says they will be 'celebrating', too.

The number of police officers required in Sydney is a shame.


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fuagf

01/05/11 12:48 AM

#122092 RE: StephanieVanbryce #121737

Australia on edge as floods test Rockhampton’s defences
DPA


AP Floodwaters are seen in the Depot Hill district of Rockhampton on Tuesday.

Rockhampton’s 75,000 residents rejoiced on Wednesday when the swollen Fitzroy River looked set to peak below the catastrophic level of 9.4 metres that officials said would inundate 400 more homes and complete the isolation of the flood-ravaged city.

Rockhampton, on Australia’s east coast, is the current focus of the floods in Queensland that have shut 40 coal mines, ruined cash crops and damaged the wheat harvest.

“If we dodge the bullet, if it doesn’t go up to 9.4, whilst we’ve still got a lot of housing involved, it’ll mean that the highway will stay open to the north and it’ll give us a greater capacity to deal with this event,” deputy commissioner of police Ian Stewart said.

Estimates of the damage and lost production from Queensland’s worst floods in 50 years go as high as 9 billion Australian dollars (9 billion US dollars).

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said when appointing Major General Mick Slater the head of a flood recovery task force that the repair cost would be at least 5 billion Australian dollars.

She said 1,200 homes had been swamped and 10,700 had flood damage, and that 4,000 people were being housed in 17 evacuation centres in 10 Queensland towns.

“Until the waters recede nobody knows what the price tag is,” she said. “If we need additional resources we have offers from other nations ... if we need it we’ll put our hand up.” Australia has received offers of assistance from the US government.

Losses from flooding covering an area the size of France and Germany combined are being felt in international commodity markets.

The waterlogging of farms and coal pits has lifted the prices of grains and the coking coal used in steelmaking. There is likely to be a knock-on effect on food and metals prices around the globe.

The floods have brought destruction on a shocking scale, with 22 towns inundated and some in line for a second soaking if the forecast for more rain later this week is correct.

“What I’m seeing in every community I visit is heartbreak,” Bligh said. “We’ve got private homes, private businesses, all devastated, and they’ll have to be rebuilt.” The Defence Force has organized an airlift of food, drinking water and medical supplies and a fleet of military helicopters is on standby if the Bruce Highway is severed and all roads to Rockhampton cut off.

The airport was knocked out five days ago and may be awash for three weeks.

Rockhampton Mayor Brad Carter said 117 people slept in an evacuation centre set up inside a local university, and around 500 were staying with relatives or friends on higher ground.

In St George, a town of 2,500 people 500 kilometres west of Brisbane, some houses yet to be repaired after the Balonne-Condamine River burst its banks in March are being sandbagged to prevent a second inundation.

“People see the floodwaters coming down and say, ‘That’s my life about to be covered in silt again,’” said Barnaby Joyce, the local member of parliament. “People are thinking -- we’ve got no money, no crop, we’ve really got no future.”
http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/00336/IN05_AUSTRALIA_FLOO_336850f.jpg

I see, President Obama, has offered help, i think he should keep any money as you guys need it, or send it to Pakistan where there are more needy .. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66T3RS20100812



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fuagf

03/23/12 10:59 PM

#171229 RE: StephanieVanbryce #121737

Evidence Qld dam engineers 'colluded'
March 16, 2012

AAP

Three Wivenhoe dam engineers could face criminal or misconduct charges in the wake of damning findings by the inquiry into Queensland's flood disaster.

Commissioner Catherine Holmes found there was evidence the engineers had colluded to pen a misleading report about how they managed water releases from the dam before Brisbane and Ipswich flooded last year.

Flood victims have long claimed the water releases were botched and the flooding was compounded as a direct result.

Justice Holmes said Queensland's corruption watchdog should investigate the men to determine if they deliberately misled her inquiry.

The Crime and Misconduct Commission must assess whether the actions of John Tibaldi, Robert Ayre and Terry Malone warranted criminal or official misconduct charges, she said.

Justice Holmes said it was not for the commission to say whether an offence had occurred.

But there was evidence the men had colluded to write a misleading March report - primarily written by Mr Tibaldi for dam operator Seqwater, with input from Mr Ayre and Mr Malone - about when they escalated water releases.

Justice Holmes also found the engineers breached the dam's operating manual before the two cities and their surrounds flooded last January.

Lawyers say the findings have strengthened the case for a class action, on behalf of thousands of flood victims, against the government-owned Seqwater.

The inquiry reconvened hearings in dramatic circumstances earlier this year, after media reports said it had failed to identify discrepancies in documents about the way water releases from the dam were handled.

In a damning assessment, Justice Holmes said: "The conclusion has been reached that Mr Tibaldi and Mr Ayre knew - and that Mr Malone had a basis for suspecting - that the March flood event report was misleading," Justice Holmes found.

She said none of the men had pointed out discrepancies between earlier flood documents and the final March report, despite them having every opportunity to do so at the inquiry's initial hearings.

Critically, the engineers did not mention an early document Mr Malone wrote, which said the dam transitioned to a higher water release later than was claimed in the March report.

Commissioner Holmes spoke of a "striking, unanimous and collective lapse of memory" about documents that painted a different picture from the March report.

"The inference was open that the concealment of the true nature of the March flood event report was a joint effort to which each was a party," she found.

In their testimony to the reconvened hearings, the engineers denied colluding to create a fictitious report and said they did their best to protect urban areas.

Justice Holmes said flooding in Brisbane and Ipswich could have been reduced to some degree, if capacity in the dam had been freed up before the December deluge.

But she said it simply wasn't possible to have forecast what was to come.

"... to appreciate what the magnitude of the rain would be and that it would fall in the dam area would have required a more than human capacity of prediction," she found.

However, she said she was concerned about "the apparent inertia" of government when the possibility of drawing down the dam was raised.

Labor's water minister at the time, Stephen Robertson, told the inquiry that he had raised the idea of pre-emptive dam releases months before the floods, but by the time he got a formal response the deluge had already begun.

In other findings, Justice Holmes said there was room for improvement in emergency response planning.

But she noted the flood crisis was unprecedented and so widespread that no government could be expected to have the capacity to respond seamlessly, immediately and comprehensively.

She found Queensland's land-use planning regarding flood risk had been ad hoc, and flood risk assessment systems were lacking.

Premier Anna Bligh and Liberal National Party leader Campbell Newman have both vowed to implement the inquiry's recommendations in full should they win the March 24 poll.

The report contained no adverse findings against the Bligh government, nor Mr Newman during his tenure as Brisbane lord mayor.

But the threat of a massive class action against a government-owned authority could hurt Labor at the ballot box.

Ms Bligh said Seqwater was insured, but its liability was yet to be established.

Seqwater said it would not be commenting on the inquiry's report until it had properly considered it.

© 2012 AAP

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/evidence-qld-dam-engineers-colluded-20120316-1v95d.html

========

The article above was bucketed here .. International Rivers

Monday, March 19, 2012 .. Dam operators caused 2010 floods in Australia

http://damsandalternatives.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/dam-operators-caused-2010-floods-in.html

more on it from WaPo in there, too.



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fuagf

03/25/12 2:44 AM

#171396 RE: StephanieVanbryce #121737

And today .. Queensland 99 per cent disaster-declared as flooded north faces new cyclone threat

AAP, The Courier-Mail
March 11, 2011 4:13PM


Flooding on the Bruce Hwy at Cattle Creek, south of Ingham, Picture: Dennis O'Sullivan


BIG WET: Extensive flooding on Ingham
Road, Garbutt, in Townsville.
Picture: Suzanne Lowe

ALMOST every inch of Queensland has been disaster-declared
following the state's devastating summer season.


http://www.news.com.au/further-soaking-for-states-north-as-forecast-predicts-five-straight-days-of-rain/story-e6frep3x-1226019344042?from=public_rss

Good news is that the 2011-2012 La Nina event is forecast to be coming to an end .. ooi, also in that one ..

Goodbye Bligh: Anna quits after Labor annihilation
http://www.news.com.au/national/lnp-win-all-but-assured/story-e6frfkvr-1226308773921
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fuagf

01/27/13 10:50 PM

#197773 RE: StephanieVanbryce #121737

Floods claim third victim

Date January 28, 2013 - 11:16AM

[ embedded video .. warning, devastated people ]

The body of a motorcyclist swept away by floodwaters in Brisbane's southwest last night has been recovered, bringing the official death toll due to Queensland's lethal storm event to three on Monday morning.

The man's body was pulled from Oxley Creek around 9am, after hours of searching by police and swift water rescue crews.

The motorcylist was washed off a bridge along the Greenbank-Goodna Road around 11pm.


Wild weather hits southeast Queensland

The view from Teneriffe, where the the Brisbane River appears
to be about 40cm from breaking its bank. Photo: Adrian Field

http://www.smh.com.au/queensland/floods-claim-third-victim-20130128-2dfks.html

=====

Flood to inundate thousands of Bundaberg homes

Updated 48 minutes ago


Photo: The disaster co-ordination centre says helicopters are trying to rescue about 30 people from roofs. (ABC: Kerrin Binnie)

Photo: Deputy Mayor David Batts says residents are now realising the gravity of the situation. (ABC TV)


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-28/flooding-in-bundaberg/4487082

Video: Watch ABC News 24 for all the latest on the floods (ABC News)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-05-03/abc-news-24-stream/167392

Map: Bundaberg 4670 - http://maps.google.com/?q=-24.8683,152.3459(Bundaberg%204670)&z=5

Police are ordering residents to evacuate their homes in north Bundaberg as the city's flood crisis worsens.

Authorities are warning another 2,000 homes will be inundated as floodwaters continue to rise.

Around 1,000 homes have already been flooded in the city's north and east, with residents plucked from the roofs of their homes today.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-28/dozens-awaiting-rescue-from-record-bundaberg-flood/4486946

=====

Floods, fires hit Queensland on same day



http://article.wn.com/view/2013/01/20/Floods_fires_hit_Queensland_on_same_day_f/

See also:

Climate Change and the End of Australia
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