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Queensland Floods

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With regard to the current situation, the Queensland Police have posted suburb by suburb links to flood maps for Brisbane.

http://www.facebook.com/QueenslandPolice?v=app_10442206389

Same thing from Brisbane City Council.

http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/#suburbs

The above maps may not be relaible re the current situation.

The following (also linked from Brisbane City Council) shows much worse flooding for the CBD than the individual suburb maps.

http://media.bcc.ireckon.com/media/Fig128_12000_Inun_east.pdf
 
The rain has eased now
The power in the suburb I am in may go off tomorrow
My house is on the high ground we have had some water leaking in the lower floor
nothing major at all

They have advised everyone to stay home if the can to keep the roads free

Looking like the river will peak on the high tide this Thursday

just heart breaking watching the news

Stay safe: don't take any chances and stay home if you can

James
 
Smurf1976 said:
Now they're going to turn the power off in Brisbane.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-new...-by-power-outage/story-fn7ik2te-1225985877740

Note that once you lose mains power, you have also effectively lost most other critical infrastructure which depends on electricity to function. This whole situation just keeps getting worse...
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and only at the beginning of the wet season Smurf. Let's hope a couple of cyclones don't blow in this month and turn into southerly directed tropical rain depressions. :(

I know someone in Brisvegas who will lose all the stuff in their house and/or their entire property by the looks of things at this stage. Let's see how the Wivenhoe catchment release project works and according to the projected outflows? :eek: Scary stuff!
 
All the best to those who may be affected in the coming days.

Up here in North Queensland, I fear our turn is still to come.
 
our power is back on not sure for how long
The city is not looking good
Suburbs cut off 9000 houses will be flooded this is changing and seems to be going up Bridges across the brisbane river are closed
The industrial estate 500 meters behind me is Sumner's Park is a mass of muddy water
traffic light not working in most suburbs.
people buying food in the shops the shelves are almost empty
Choppers flying over my house towards the city center
Mater Hospital is not accessible due to water
We have constant updates on TV and radio and keeps changing
we only have showers now and are easing
police and S.E.S have been fantastic !!!

My thoughts are for the people worse off then me

James
 
Frustration, disappointment, sorrow, heartbreak, grieving. So many in Brisbane experiencing loss.
 
Information relayed via Anna Bligh on television says the Moggill Ferry may be sunk by the military because it is in danger of loosing from its mooring on the bank. The Moggill Ferry travels across the river on cables and one of these cables is broken with the fear of the Ferry becoming a serious hazard floating down the river so the military may blow it. It is a big unit.
 

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GumbyLearner said:
and only at the beginning of the wet season Smurf. !
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Quite so!


white_crane said:
All the best to those who may be affected in the coming days.

Up here in North Queensland, I fear our turn is still to come.
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Yes, it will. I see in Bundaberg this morning the water has risen and cutting some streets again. I think they are expecting it to peak tonight or tomorrow about 5 meters... a couple of meters short of last time.

GumbyLearner said:
Let's see how the Wivenhoe catchment release project works and according to the projected outflows? :eek: Scary stuff
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Yes, I'm quite interested to see how big of a rain event it can handle, dare I say, before it max's out and the wall fails. You can call me pessimestic, but hardly ever complacent... which I suspect many have become with the assurance of 'Flood Mitigation' dams.

Calliope said:
This number of properties expected to be affected has been revised upwards to 40,000, which includes 19,700 homes expected to be inundated.
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Yeah... and probably worse than 1974... which we were told the Wivenhoe was going to protect us from and never experience again. :cautious:

It maybe just me, but I think minor floods are a necessary part of the ecosystem and help to keep us from becoming complacent. On the risk side, I know if I had a choice between relatively frequent smaller incidents that may cause some harm, but are generally considered non life threatening and a one in a hundred year or greater chance where the impact would be devestating and probably fatal...I always go for the former.

Maybe I'm just the odd one out, but I tend to think of risk in terms of the worst case consequences and assess down to something I'm comfortable with, whereas I think a lot of people assess risk in terms of how likely it is to happen and take less and less precautions as the chance of it happening decreases... leaving them completely overwhelmed when a major event does happen.



Brisbane prepares for worst flood in 118 years
January 11, 2011


Brisbane is headed for its worst flood since 1893, with up to 40,000 properties at risk of being affected.

A disaster has been declared and an evacuation centre set up at the RNA Showgrounds at Bowen Hills.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh tonight warned river levels would rise above the heights experienced in the catastrophic 1974 floods.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/env...-worst-flood-in-118-years-20110111-19lvq.html
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derty said:
Live river heights at Brisbane, Ipswich and Wivenhoe:
Brisbane River at City
Bremer River at Ipswich
Brisbane River at Wivenhoe Dam
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I see on that graph at Wivenhoe it's nudging 75 meters, with full supp level apparently 50 meters.

I've ben unable to find a total wall height, but the max level appears to be 225%, reaching about 192% yesterday and apparently still about 190%, and not going to scale back releases for some time yet.

Where are all the mathematicans and hydrologists... how much more rain will it take in the next two or three days, when it seems not much is going to change in terms of water levels and inflow before the 225% is reached and the wall starts overflowing?
 
Whiskers said:
Yes, I'm quite interested to see how big of a rain event it can handle, dare I say, before it max's out and the wall fails. You can call me pessimestic, but hardly ever complacent... which I suspect many have become with the assurance of 'Flood Mitigation' dams.
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Yeah... and probably worse than 1974... which we were told the Wivenhoe was going to protect us from and never experience again. :cautious:
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You are very smug. You say "we were told the Wivenhoe was going to protect us". What do you mean by "us"? No one as smart as you would live in a risk area, surely:rolleyes:
 
Calliope said:
You are very smug. You say "we were told the Wivenhoe was going to protect us". What do you mean by "us"? No one as smart as you would live in a risk area, surely:rolleyes:
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I did live in Brisbane for awhile many years ago, but I seem to have a healty natural instinct to head for the hills to roll out my swag and make camp, so in that respect I am a little smug that I am not caught in the flood waters.

But I do travel to Bris quite often and rely on the transport corridors to the south side in particular, and am a little peeved off that Brisbane is expected to experience worse than the 1974 flood, in contradiction of the assurance only about 25 years ago that Bris will never experience anything like the 1974 disaster again.
 
Whiskers said:
I did live in Brisbane for awhile many years ago, but I seem to have a healty natural instinct to head for the hills to roll out my swag and make camp, so in that respect I am a little smug that I am not caught in the flood waters.

I ...am a little peeved off that Brisbane is expected to experience worse than the 1974 flood, in contradiction of the assurance only about 25 years ago that Bris will never experience anything like the 1974 disaster again.
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Seeing that you are peeved, and anti-dam, perhaps you can tell us what the projected height of the flood in Brisbane would be in the absence of the Wivenhoe Dam.

It would be about 2 metres above the projected height tomorrow of 5.5 metres.

It is anticipated that during a large flood similar in magnitude to that experienced in 1974, by using mitigation facility within Wivenhoe Dam, flood levels will be reduced downstream by an estimated 2 metres.
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http://www.seqwater.com.au/public/catch-store-treat/dams/wivenhoe-dam
 
Calliope said:
Seeing that you are peeved, and anti-dam, ]
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I'm not anti-dam, but I am anti-mega-dams unless there is a compelling holistic case for it. I prefer more smaller dams in say rocky steep terrain that is not particularly usefull or significant for other purposes, eg The Fred Haig Dam.

perhaps you can tell us what the projected height of the flood in Brisbane would be in the absence of the Wivenhoe Dam.

It would be about 2 metres above the projected height tomorrow of 5.5 metres.
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Yeah, they estimate that. But estimates tend to be a bit rubbery, more or less, depending who makes them.

The trade-off though for a lower level this time seems to be a much longer inundation of those who do go under because of the necessary releases from Wivenhoe. That means a lot of things like timber in floors and frames and even vegetation that normally survives a short inundation may be ruined beyound repair.

Another trade-off, is the complacency of residents in the belief that a repeat of 1974 will never occur...ie slow to respond to the threat of rising water.

Another good example of an unforseen trade-off is the possible 'blowing up' of the Brisbane’s floating Riverwalk as well as the ferry mentioned earlier to prevent them becoming floating missiles... and how many more are to come.

Not forgeting the unthinkable, that the wet season has just started and Wivenhoe may meet it's match from nature and double or tripple the flow in a flash.

As I indicated before I'm pretty risk averse. I wouldn't live anywhere near the Brisbane River flood plane for quids.
 
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