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Queensland Floods

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As I understand it those payments are for people whose home is uninhabitable - which is thankfully not the case with me.

The first 3 floods were relatively minor/moderate. This latest one is a bit bigger. With more rain forecast for tonight, it could be another day or so of isolation yet. At least I don't get inundated.

I wish everyone else in the affected areas well.
 
Re: Queensland Floods.. SHAME SHAME SHAME!!!!

it seems the young survivour, blake, he's only 10, is getting your typical queensland welcome for having survived the flood. his brother jordan, and his mum were swept away.. both perished

the way queenslanders look after their own suffering children... its outrageous imho

blake got the crap beaten out of him just the other day. is being bullied constantly. and now has a broken collar bone.... and the thugs have a facebook page up..


''We bashed Blake Rice''.

his dad, who also survived, has had people laugh at his face over his loss..

they are now being forced to leave the community, relocate elsewhere.. as their welfare is in peril..

nice crowd those queenslanders are!!!

imho the biggest bunch of low lifes out there

of course there is no shame here... but i sure am ashamed of being part of australian society when this is the way we treat families devastated by what i think was a tragic flood..

we need to get some sort of support for the survivors imho.. the way the community is turning on the the survivors and going after them.. its something that imho needs to immediately stopped..

i saw a documentary on the weekend on the township of grantham.. and imho if your local and you know how bad the losses where, and your chasing down and beating up survivors.. your about as low as it gets..

huge thumbs down queenslanders..!!!

lift your game and get real!!!!!
 
Re: Queensland Floods.. SHAME SHAME SHAME!!!!

Agentm said:
huge thumbs down queenslanders..!!!

lift your game and get real!!!!!
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This isn't just a Queensland problem.
Personally the whole thing makes me sick. But media karma is a biatch, so I'm sure there is angry mob justice on the way.
 
Re: Queensland Floods.. SHAME SHAME SHAME!!!!

Agentm said:
...huge thumbs down queenslanders..!!!

lift your game and get real!!!!!
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I definitely share your outrage at this incomprehensible attack on a family that would still be grieving acutely, however, please don't tar us all with the same brush as these shameful, unacceptable imbeciles.

The large numbers of Queenslanders who reached a helping hand during the floods and with the cleanup would far outweigh the sick individuals that are behind this incomprehensible bullying.

I hope this reaches the news and the family gets the support they deserve and realise that these sickos are in the minority. Hopefully, the perpetrators are dealt with severely in a similar way to those caught looting at disaster properties and send a message to other sickos that this behaviour is not acceptable.

Bullying is bad enough, but to inflict pain, suffering and humilation because someone has tragically lost a family member is sick beyond belief.

These people shouldn't be allowed to call themselves Australians and they certainly don't belong in Qld, IMO.
 
Re: Queensland Floods.. SHAME SHAME SHAME!!!!


They are not genuine Queenslanders, probably not even born and bred there to have acted like that. Don't fret the genuine queenslanders will fix this problem the Queensland way. The perertrators would be well advised to move south for health reasons. Thumbs up to Queenslanders. I've spent some time in Grantham and have seen a different side to the story.

I'll give one example. There is a chap there who lost his wife and two children, his cars and his home and is left with one son. I was one of a group that organised a car and a caravan for him. He gave the car to a community group saying that someone probably needed it more than him. He also declined the caravan and it is now with someone else,
that's the true Queensland spirit

Another example. Marty Warburton who lost his business in the flood is still working with the relief team. When offered help to get his business going again he chose to let that wait until the town in general was back on its feet.

I doubt those sort of things would happen often outside of Queensland.:
 
Re: Queensland Floods.. SHAME SHAME SHAME!!!!


Read the article and felt the same way poor little bugger but would expect most Queenslanders to be horrified by it as well.
 
Re: Queensland Floods.. SHAME SHAME SHAME!!!!

IFocus said:
Read the article and felt the same way poor little bugger but would expect most Queenslanders to be horrified by it as well.
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Yay, we agree on something...
 
Re: Queensland Floods.. SHAME SHAME SHAME!!!!

Why wouldn't they adopt a strategy based on forecast rainfall ?


Whe're all paying for it now.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...enhoe-dam-breach/story-fn59niix-1226106273775

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...failures-on-show/story-e6frgd0x-1226106242050
 

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One of the problems with using forecasts in dam operations is that if the rain doesn't come then you've just let out rather a lot of drinking water that could turn out to be needed. That said, using forecasts is legitimate provided that such forecasts were factored into the analysis which determined the dam's operating rules and accepted incidence of failure.

That's like saying you can use price forecasts in your share trading, provided that this is how you did your back testing. But it's not valid to do the back testing one way and then trade another and it's the same with a dam.

As far as real, permanent solutions are concerned there is one extremely obvious point. Build another large storage, which could be an offstream storage (a dam not built on a river and which has no natural inflow) and then there would be no debate about Wivenhoe's operation.

The underlying issue is that the dam isn't big enough to provide both flood control and a reliable water supply. To avoid a flood it is necessary to target a storage level which will result in complete failure to supply drinking water in a drought. And to maintain water supply requires a target level which is even higher than that maintained prior to the flood. Quite simply the storage isn't big enough.

Build a new large storage (probably offstream) and that fixes both problems properly.
 
Fair points Smurf, but there's more science behind weather forecasting than there is in forecasting the confidence of the human herd.
 
El nina DUH! Obviously all the warnings in the media about extreme cyclone events in the north last summer went right past the hydrologists at Wivenhoe. I think they may have mentioned extreme rainfall events as well.

Never to mind engineers are smart university people a bit like meteorologists really. Exactly who is the smarter of the two is a matter of conjecture at this point and a trust issue society will consider (hopefully) in the future.

Lets just assume next time the pacific ocean is considerably warmer than usual due to el nina and seasonal winds are onshore there might be moisture laden winds heading inland with a higher than usual chance of bringing precipitation.

Pro engineer tip....just because it hasn't been raining much doesn't mean it won't at some point :
 
Well its time to comment on the floods.
If anybody has not had the good fortune to read "Back from the Brink" and "Beyond the Brink", I recommend that you do so. (Local Library)

Years ago the towns originated near the rivers, because there was no elaborate pumping systems for water like we have today.

The Australian flood plains have to be rejuvenated with micro and macro nutrients, to keep the grasslands going strong. This is what major flooding achieves.

If you have a close squiz at some of these floods on TV you will see the buildup for roads and railways are actually the cause of the backing up of water, and thus the flooding. i.e. It cannot spread across the flood plains.

So basically mankind has not attempted to live in cohesion with nature and now pays the price. If mankind looks very closely at nature he will solve a number of problems quite simply.
However as an Engineer said to me once, 'the best time to hire a Engineer is straight out of university. That's when they know everything." After a year or so they add experience to their resume.

So because we have hi - tech media coverage now, the floods that have happened from the beginning of Australia are now looked at as environmental problems.

joea
 
In an article titled "Moment of Truth on Great Flood". Courier Mail

This is an extract...
Bligh and Treasurer Andrew Fraser preferred full dams in late 2010 because of embarrassment over unreliability of multi-bullion-dollar desalination plants that kept breaking down. Full dams cannot mitigate floods........

Yes it was a drought we were coming from, but the dam was built to mitigate flooding of Brisbane, and the weather forecast were ignored by Fraser. He advised the Dam to be operated at 70%, and not the 50% design height to mitigate the type of weather they were warned against.

However I have not yet found the original comment(by Fraser) by the media.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...h-on-great-flood/story-e6frgczx-1226268196622

joea
 
This time 5 years ago I found myself watching the waters rise and some of my assets going under 4 metres of water.

I don't care how the authorities covered up the truth, I still get furious when I think about how the imbeciles in charge released the water too slowly and then way too fast from Wivenhoe Dam.

The fact the dam could have held far more water and the dam itself was designed to safely overflow without opening sluice gates was suppressed.

The kicker for me was finding out that Suncorp have taken out the flood coverage clause of my 10 year insurance policy a few months prior, presumably because they knew there was problem looming. And the aftermath of watching a politically orchestrated "mud army" spend most of the time sipping coffee and tea in buses staged at Mt Cootha, while the rest of the population actually responded by pitching in and helping with the cleanup, was angering.

Thredbo debacle, 2011 floods debacle and now we are looking at a Yarloop/Pinjarra debacle. Emergency Services et al, should be start looking at responding rather than stalling with risk assessements etc.

I'm still angry at the financial and emotional distress the half wits caused me; it ultimately fed into the demise of my wife....b4stards.
 

That must have been very distressing for you Tisme, I'm sorry to hear your story.

There was an enquiry afterwards. Did you give evidence as to the insurance issue ?

This is obviously a concern for all insurance holders, Suncorp should not have been allowed to do that. Did they inform you of the changes when they happened ?

Is it worth you taking this further legally ?
 

The worst case scenario with a dam (any dam) is water flowing over the dam wall itself. If that happens then the ultimate consequence (worst case) is it washes away or undermines the dam. Then the whole thing comes down and you end up with a flood of massive proportions plus a wrecked dam.

How excess water is dealt with depends on the design, which itself is a function of the specific site.

Most commonly there's a spillway. Once water reaches that level, it simply goes down the spillway and no human intervention is required.

In other cases water is released by opening a valve / gate. Proper operation of this is based on a set "trigger" level being reached, that being about the same level where you'd have put the spillway if that approach had been used.

In a few cases there's something more complicated. Eg at Liapootah dam (Tas), the top of the dam is basically a giant cylinder that rotates. This enables the lake to be kept at an almost constant "full" level whether spilling or not since the height of the dam is effectively reduced by rotating the drum in order to pass high flood flows without raising the lake's level.

Key to all of these is that operation of a spillway is either fully automatic (water just goes down it and there's no way to stop that) or in the case of gates or valves, based on a proper engineering assessment as to at what point they should be opened.

Politics should never enter the equation. Politicians aren't the right people to be deciding to store too much water and then flood the place.

They aren't the right people to order the draining of storages to raise cash either, but that's another story....
 
I know we have a few members in the Townsville area.

I'm sure we all hope that you are as least affected by the recent downpours as you can be and I hope it's over soon.
 
SirRumpole said:
I know we have a few members in the Townsville area.

I'm sure we all hope that you are as least affected by the recent downpours as you can be and I hope it's over soon.
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FNQers are a different breed Rumpy. As long as the Beer doesn't run out. Floods, Cyclones, Droughts they see it every year. That's on top of the Taipans, Crocs, Jellies and various other local pleasures.
Best of luck fellow Qlders!

 
My Sister staying with her Daughter were moved with army assistance 2 hours ago and now safe on higher ground with another member of Family. There was a huge downpour just south near the dam about four hours back which tilted things to the extreme. Had been without power for two days so phone etc were getting low lol.
 
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