Queensland floods

[tuuur]

If you look at Caravan Ray's info, you'll see he's from a town in Australia that's currently in the news: Toowoomba.

I read tonight there are 8 people killed, and 72 are still missing in the flashfloods that occurred there last week.
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/politics ... agedy.html

I sure hope he's all right.

[Billy's Little Trip]

If someone was to participate in one of the 3rd coolest places on Song Fight, Daily Roll Call, that person would have noticed this. http://songfight.net/forums/viewtopic.p ... 01#p157601

I'm not going to mention names, but if you add a "d" to the end of his name, it's funny.

[Lunkhead]

Also, Ray had this to say on Facebook:

"We are all wet, but safe up here in Toowoomba. The attached video shows the carpark next to Penny's office. Most of the cars being washed away are the cars of her workmates. It was a pretty wild afternoon"

[irwin]

"I'm so glad I parked out front today!"

Wow.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Wow. Watching that vid at how fast it built up. It's really flowing fast. It was amazing to see all of the cars piled up at the end of that river.

[Caravan Ray]

Yep - that video shows what Monday afternoon was like.

There are 2 creeks that flow through the middle of Toowoomba ("flow" being debatable. They are both normally dry gullys. Neither has "flowed" for about 10 years) East Creek is the one in the video. West Creek (imaginative names, huh!) is less than 1km away.

My wife and I were in the CBD - between the 2 creeks. My daughter was at school, west of West Creek. Our house is east of East Creek. Both creeks were raging torrents. Luckily - I work for the local government, so had access to CCTV footage around the city - and was able to plot a course around the chaos and washed out roads to get our daughter and get home.

This is biblical proportion stuff going on at the moment in Queensland. As I write - the flood peak is hitting Brisbane. Australia's 3rd largest city. Tomorrow afternoon as high tide hits - Brisbane and Ipswich - population around 2 million - will experience the biggest flood in their history. Glad I am not down there now.

As I write - 75% of Queensland is flood affected. Just to place that in perspective for Americans. Queensland is 1/5 the size of the entire continental USA. Queensland is three times larger than Texas. Yes - three times larger (well, almost) than Texas.

We are currently experiencing La Nina climactic conditions here, and a wet season is expected. This is quite extraordinary however. Cost of this is expected to be in the tens of billions of dollars. Ironically - Queensland is also the world's largest coal exporter. We have not been able to export coal from our ports for several weeks. I wonder if anyone will now twig to the idea that taking a risk assessment approach to climate change is a sensible thing to do.

[BBABM]

When the cars started going my first question was "where do they end up?" the end explains it. That is nuts! I'm glad you all are ok.

[tuuur]

If someone was to participate in one of the 3rd coolest places on Song Fight, Daily Roll Call, that person would have noticed this. http://songfight.net/forums/viewtopic.p ... 01#p157601

I'm not going to mention names, but if you add a "d" to the end of his name, it's funny.

I consider myself still a noob here... thanks for the hint!
And Caravan Ray, that's pretty intense footage...

[Billy's Little Trip]

HEY. I saw that clip on my news today. I told everyone I knew a guy there. They didn't believe me.

[HeuristicsInc]

wow, that video has 2,958,557 plays at the moment.
is that you two talking? you're famous!
-bill

[BBABM]

It got posted on wimp.com
Pretty good traffic, I'm sure.

[Caravan Ray]

wow, that video has 2,958,557 plays at the moment.
is that you two talking? you're famous!
-bill

No - we didn't take it. I don't know who took it. Someone from the building next to Penny's office. I was on the other side of the CBD at the time, and Penny was too busy trying to move her car and evacuate her office to worry about filming anything.


Can't help feeling the bloke must be kicking himself for posting to youtube and not selling it. It seems every news agency in the world is using it. I assume they are all just taking it and using it for free? Is that how youtube works?

[Billy's Little Trip]

By the way, that guy wasn't letting the air out of his front tires, he was locking his hubs on his 4X4, lol.

[roymond]

My god, that's intense. Just another day at the office, I suppose...

My good friend Tim and his Aussie wife Anne live in Noosaville, Queensland, which would be the most awesome-ist Souse title if Noosa Heads wasn't a few miles north. On Tuesday they were getting 3-4 inches of rain per hour...uh...wtf god? He said they are on a hill so mostly not underwater other than the rain. But the Australian twist is that the snakes have less land to hang on. So they are congregating wherever it's drier, which means they share the turf with humans, and there are lots of them.

But snakes are NOTHING compared to the frogs.

[Billy's Little Trip]

^ LOL.
oh...
my...
god...

[BBABM]

By the way, that guy wasn't letting the air out of his front tires, he was locking his hubs on his 4X4, lol.

My words exactly

[Caravan Ray]

My god, that's intense. Just another day at the office, I suppose...

My good friend Tim and his Aussie wife Anne live in Noosaville, Queensland, which would be the most awesome-ist Souse title if Noosa Heads wasn't a few miles north. On Tuesday they were getting 3-4 inches of rain per hour...uh...wtf god? He said they are on a hill so mostly not underwater other than the rain. But the Australian twist is that the snakes have less land to hang on. So they are congregating wherever it's drier, which means they share the turf with humans, and there are lots of them.

But snakes are NOTHING compared to the frogs.

No - I'll take the frogs over the Joe Blakes anyday.

Why does that video say "staring a plethora of Canus lupis"?

Canis lupis is a dog (or a wolf). I have never heard of a frog genus "canus"

It looked more like Litoria caerulea. I once tried to use a roadhouse toilet near Cloncurry and lifted the lid to find the bowl full of about 10 of the things. You have to be careful if use the dunny in the dark - they come up and put their slimy little hands on your bottom. An unsettling experience I am told.

[Lunkhead]

Maybe the snake problem will solve the frog problem?

[HeuristicsInc]

i don't know why she swallowed the snake...

yeah, okay, i didn't think it was c.ray by voice, but i couldn't be sure about your wife, not having heard hers much.
-bill

[Billy's Little Trip]

Why does that video say "staring a plethora of Canus lupis"?

Canis lupis is a dog (or a wolf). I have never heard of a frog genus "canus"

Maybe when he went to type tree frog into google, he accidentally typed tree dog. The D is right next to the F. He probably typed Tree drog and google said, do you mean tree dog? And he clicked yes, because the non stop repetitive barking from the frog was driving him slowly but surely mad.

There's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Caravan Ray]

Are Tree Dogs as vicious as drop bears?

[Caravan Ray]

Maybe the snake problem will solve the frog problem?

We don't have a frog problem. We have a toad problem. Cane toads.


And a really nasty twist to the cane toad problem is that red-bellied black snakes eat frogs, so a lot of red-bellied black snakes die when they eat the poisonous toads. And while red-bellied black snakes are potentially deadly - they are generally pretty shy and leave people alone, so are not a big problem. The other thing that red-bellied black snakes like to eat besides frogs however, is Eastern Brown Snakes. Eastern Brown Snakes on the other-hand - are right nasty mofos. Extremely venomous, extremely aggressive, very fast and responsible for more deaths and serious injuries than any other snake in Aus. And thanks to the cane toad plague - brownie numbers are exploding too, because the red-bellies are dying out.