Queensland Floods; Inland Tsunami; 8-metre wall of water

[Platypus]

Queensland has been dealing with floods for a few weeks; but as the Premier Anna Bligh put it, they've just had their 'darkest hour' as a massive wall of water swept through Toowoomba.

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/at-least-eight-dead-72-missing-as-inland-tsunami-hits-queensland-towns-20110111-19ldz.html

The video is worth checking out.

Just to put it in to context, an area the size of France, Germany and Switzerland has been inundated, and up to a depth of 16m. The death toll is fortunately in the low-double digits; the economic cost is in the billions nearing trillions.

And the water is hanging around for at least a fortnight more.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

It really is shocking...considering Toowoomba is higher up than Canberra, there's so much water it now apparently needs to go up hill.

So it seems the 'inland tsunami' came down from Toowoomba and swept through the Lockyer Valley. The Brisbane River is swollen and the ferry and city cats have stopped running as most of their stops are already under water... as Brisbane has the combination of a LOT of rain, as well as controlled releases from the Wivenhoe Dam (which was built after the 1974 flood as a preventative), the dam is currently at 140% capacity.

[Platypus]

Oh, and just for fun, there is a large bushfire in Western Australia.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

and now... the Lockyer Valley wall of water... is now heading straight for Wivenhoe Dam, which now, is at 176% capacity... this is about to get messy for Brisbane

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/11/3110450.htm

And the Brisbane River has broken it's banks at West End to the SW of the CBD... it will reach major flood level tomorrow and rise again on Thursday.... this might be on par with 1974 at this rate...

[Ban my account ffs!]

It seems that there is little surprise that major floods occurred in 1974 and again this year, considering both years have had powerful La Niña conditions in the Pacific ocean.

The combination of very strong trade winds (compared to normal) plus warm water being pushed up against Australia has caused convection to increase dramatically when that warm, moist air reaches land.  The result is quite obvious.

The La Niña continues to rage and I'd expect that above normal precipitation will continue across eastern Australia.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

They have now upped the release from the Wivenhoe Dam to 344,000 megalitres... with potential to increase to more than half-a million megalitres...

They now think some portions of Brisbane will face worse conditions than the '74 flooding.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

http://media.smh.com.au/national/national-news/watch-how-flash-flood-grew-in-minutes-2127942.html

[Robespierre's Jaw]

The La Niña continues to rage and I'd expect that above normal precipitation will continue across eastern Australia.

People are already being evacuated from parts of northern New South Wales near the Queensland border; floods are expected in Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia; and flash flooding is supposed to happen here within 24 hours.

I honestly don't know what to say; I never do when a crisis of this magnitude happens anywhere in the world, let alone here. It's terrible. Truly, heartachingly terrible.

[Smid]

I was a bit worried for an uncle and aunt and cousins in Gatton, which is downstream from Toowoomba, but they're safe.

I have an uncle and aunt and three cousins and also a cousin and her family living in Ipswich, where they estimate about a third of houses will go underwater before the flood peaks today.

My sister was sent home from work at lunch yesterday from her office, in the CBD. Apparently this YouTube video, which has had some pretty good coverage in the media, was taken by a friend of hers.

My other sister lives at the top end of the Gold Coast, so she should be right, and my brother lives in Logan, and again should be right. My parents are in the suburbs and pretty far from the river, but the Flood Map for their suburb shows that some properties near them may get a bit of water in their lawns and such. My parents are far enough away from the creek to have any worry - when they bought they checked the maps and found that the property didn't go under in 1974, so they should be right, although I know a few of the people at the other end of the street who may have some challenges.

A few friends have taken photos in grocery stores in Brisbane - all the fresh food and the bread shelves were empty because so many people went there to stock up. One of them who lives in Sherwood said his house should be okay, but his mother's house was flooding this morning. Another friend (more a friend of my wife's) has parents in Yeronga. She said their bottom floor was flooded this morning and police had told them they had an hour to take valuables from the top floor and evacuate.

The Brisbane River is tidal, and will peak four times over today and tomorrow (one peak was this morning). The highest peak will be tomorrow at about 3pm, at the high tide. They say that 19,700 residential properties and 3,500 commercial properties will be flooded. This will probably be worse than 1974, but not quite as bad as 1893, and much better than the 1840 or 1841 flood.

I've got some photos of the 1974 flood that my father took, I might try to post them on here. I also have some photos and video of Wivenhoe Dam with the floodgates open, that I took when I was up there a couple of weeks ago. I might try posting them on here, too, if anyone's interested (well, not the video, I don't know if I can upload that).

[Smid]

Oh, and 75% of Queensland is now flood-affected. Since you can fit Texas into Queensland 2.5 times, it's a pretty big area.

Using Wikipedia, I think that works out to 1,297,986 square kilometres of flooding.

By comparison, California, Oregan, Washington and Nevada add up to 1,150,190 square kilometres.

Texas, New Mexico and Arizona adds to 1,289,283 square kilometres, so fairly comparable.

[patrick1]

I really haven't been paying too much attention to this story as I've been wrapped up in the recriminations over NYC snow removal.  What is the public's perception on how the government and emergency management agencies have been handling the flood?  That is really a massive geographic scale to cover. I wonder if these people have insurance for flooding damage. In a lot flood prone areas of the US you have to purchase insurance from the government or accept the risk.

[Smid]

Flood insurance is extremely hard to come by. I was reading in this article that no insurance company would cover this guy's restaurant for flood damage because it was a floating restaurant on the river.

There are fairly strict planning controls now, and the Brisbane City Council won't permit construction (generally speaking) in flood-prone parts of the city. Many of the homes that will go under water are in the more-established suburbs, and many of them would have been built 100 years ago or so. Obviously this isn't the case for high rises in the CBD, and new apartment buildings near the river, such as in St Lucia, near the University (although those were built on properties that would have already been zoned residential and been built on prior to being developed into apartments). There are some places where the council has permitted construction, where realistically they shouldn't have. I remember a house built on the edge of a creek near my parents' house - it floods just about every time it rains, but the council told him it doesn't flood (according to the guy, but he might have just been trying to convince people he's not as dumb as he looks for building there). The house is on stilts, so he doesn't get water inside, at least, but it's astonishing that they allowed it to be built. If you want to see that place, go to Google Maps streetview and put in 764 Beenleigh Road, Sunnybank.

The Council are mentioning that there is untreated sewage leaking into the river from a treatment plant that failed/flooded.

Allowing for my bias, against a left-wing Premier up there, I think she's been doing a pretty good job handling this disaster. Not so much earlier - it took her a while to cancel her holidays over Christmas while rural Queensland was flooding, but as far as Toowoomba and Brisbane are concerned, she's doing a good job now. I'm less than impressed with the Prime Minister, who actually said she was "privileged" to be visiting the Emergency Management Centre - probably not the best choice of words. Facebook status updates and comments from non-political friends up there seem to be showing a negative perception of the Prime Minister, although she wasn't terribly popular up there to begin with. I think the Lord Mayor's doing a good job, too, and the Brisbane City Council generally, but I campaigned for him a few years back, so that could just be my bias.

The emergency teams are doing a good job, and there are many volunteers around the city who are chipping in, too, helping to sandbag other people's  properties because their own houses are safe. People seem to be less pleased with the journalists covering the floods - a few Facebook friends have criticised some of the journalists, and one posted a photo of the tv screen saying that "Cabulcha" was cut off - by which Channel 9 meant Caboolture...

I forgot to mention earlier that a couple of towns on the Western side of Toowoomba were being evacuated - I think Dalby and Condamine? For the residents of one, they were only allowed to return earlier this week after the last floods, and the other town has been evacuated because of flooding three times in five weeks.

My brother works as a carpenter for the Department of Public Works - mostly maintenance work in schools, police stations, jails, public housing, that sort of thing - so I suspect he's going to be quite busy. He was saying after the floods out west a few months back, the government sent work crews out to towns out there to help residents get back on their feet, replacing internal walls in houses, etc.

The Courier Mail says flows from Wivenhoe have been reduced from 645,000 megalitres a day to 205,000 megalitres a day, both of these rates is higher than it was when I was up there the other week which was still an incredible sight to behold.

Here's a Facebook Group with photos and information. There are some great photos of Brisbane generally, and I'm pretty sure photos of the 1974 flood on ourbrisbane.com, although it doesn't seem to be online, and one of the links in Google was saying that it's been suspended due to the floods - so perhaps it will be back online in another couple of weeks.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

So it appears to have broken the walls at Southbank, and the lower-lying levels of the CBD (including an AMAZING patiserie) is already 0.5 metre underwater, with another 1.2 metres expected.

Thankfully the people I know in Brisbane are not in affected areas...

[patrick1]

Thanks for the post SMID. Yeah, most homeowners and many businesses dont even realize that their policies usually don't cover flooding. You really have to read the fine print on these things. Zoning really is a key. After the 1994 US Midwest floods they just moved entire towns rather than perpetually rebuilding them.  Floods often dont capture the poplar imagination but cause by far  the most deaths and damages globally.

The sewage overflow is something to keep an eye on. It is not typically a first world concern, but these things can spawn disease outbreaks rather quickly. Hope your family stays safe and everything drys out soon.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Terrifying stuff and dreadful.

[Boris]

Just peaked in Brisbane about nine minutes ago at 4.46 M.....I guess that's supposed to be good?

[Smid]

So it appears to have broken the walls at Southbank, and the lower-lying levels of the CBD (including an AMAZING patiserie) is already 0.5 metre underwater, with another 1.2 metres expected.

Thankfully the people I know in Brisbane are not in affected areas...

Which patiserie? A couple of my favourite bars are down by the river on the Eagle Street Pier but probably safe because they're on the second floor, however my wife's favourite restaurant is probably chest deep in water, I suspect (Fix, attached to the Port Office Hotel - there are a few photos of the Port Office Hotel in 1974, which show the water that deep, or perhaps slightly higher).

I saw on the tv this morning that the river got high enough to make it into the artificial beach at Southbank, which is pretty high up, I mean, there's the walkway/promenade along the front which is already pretty high above the river usually, then there's several steps up from there before you reach the beach...

Thanks for the post SMID. Yeah, most homeowners and many businesses dont even realize that their policies usually don't cover flooding. You really have to read the fine print on these things. Zoning really is a key. After the 1994 US Midwest floods they just moved entire towns rather than perpetually rebuilding them.  Floods often dont capture the poplar imagination but cause by far  the most deaths and damages globally.

The sewage overflow is something to keep an eye on. It is not typically a first world concern, but these things can spawn disease outbreaks rather quickly. Hope your family stays safe and everything drys out soon.

I know what you mean about checking the fine print - we have renters' insurance, and a couple of months ago had some pretty substantial water damage through our place - our hot water system burst overnight, and since the indicator thing thought it was empty, it kept trying to fill up all night long, we woke up in the morning with about two inches of water through our entire apartment. That was when we found out that renters' insurance only covers for fire and theft, and not water damage. Not that that's as serious as the problems people are facing back home in Brisbane, but yeah, it's a good idea to read the fine print.

I think I vaguely remember those 1994 floods from the television. I've heard it said that floods are worse than fire even, because after a fire, you can just rebuild, but after a flood, often the house is structurally sound and it's carpets and things that need replacing, but the smell never really goes away. My mother said that following 1974, people said that every time it rained, the humidity made all the smell come back, even though it wasn't flooded any more. It also deposits a thick sludge of silt everywhere, which is really tough to clean and get rid of.

Just peaked in Brisbane about nine minutes ago at 4.46 M.....I guess that's supposed to be good?

That's much better than they'd been expecting - I understand that it came in below the 1974 level. Much of that is thanks to the work of the hydrologists and engineers up at Wivenhoe Dam, who realised that with a lower runoff entering the dam, they could reduce the releases through the floodgates. It runs a risk if there is further heavy rain, but in the meantime, it has prevented further flooding.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Le Bon Choix, just diagonally across from Customs House.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/blogs/blunt-instrument/has-anna-bligh-earned-herself-a-second-chance/20110113-19ojm.html

It looks like Anna Bligh may have given herself a second-chance politically.

And frankly, I think she's done an amazing job.

[Smid]

Le Bon Choix, just diagonally across from Customs House.

The name sounds familiar, but I can't picture it. I know that I've never eaten there, unless it was the place I went to back when I was scrutineering after the 2004 election (the AEC is, or was at that time, in the same building as the blood bank there, across from Customs House).

[Smid]

A few things... Suncorp insurance has advertising on the Courier Mail website, saying "Must have information for Suncorp customers - you are automatically covered for flood and water damage" - so I think that their customers should at least be getting something back. Suncorp is a very popular bank/insurer up in Queensland - they sponsor the sports stadium there (which went underwater) and they sponsor a few Queensland sports teams and the like, so they're very much seen (or at least I've always seen them as being) the Queensland bank/Queensland insurer. I don't know how many customers they have, and their profitibility will probably be quite down this year, but I think a fair number of people whose properties went under probably have insurance with them and will probably be covered.

Here's something my brother posted on Facebook. I thought he expressed himself pretty well, so I'm reposting it here:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Anna Bligh struggled with her emotions yesterday during a press conference, you can see it on YouTube just after the twelve-minute mark. She said:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This is one of the most incredible speeches I've heard - I think our sub-culture is a fair bit like the Southern US, and we're very proud of who we are. Each year, we tackle NSW in the State of Origin Football and when we score, you can hear the whole Queensland crowd roar "Queenslander!" - it's like a warcry for us, and there is so much emotion and state patriotism tied up in that word, so what she said is emotionally very powerful, in my opinion - all the more so because you know she's not just saying it, she really believes it. The most powerful couple of sentences are certainly the "we are Queenslanders; we're the people that they breed tough north of the border. We're the ones that they knock down and we get up again."

I also read an article about Sydney's homeless donating to the flood recovery fund.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Some nice illustrations to show the causes behind these floods:

"Normal" conditions in the Pacific ocean: (I use the term normal very loosely as such conditions, while representing an average, are not all that common during Sept-May.  The last such period with "normal" conditions was 1996/97.)


Air pressure is higher in the central Pacific near Tahiti and somewhat lower at Darwin, Australia.  The trade winds carry warm water and moisture westward to Australia where they cause convection near the Australian coast, bringing summer rainfall to the region.  (Winter in the northern hemisphere).  Cooler water upwells near South America and keeps that area much drier.


El Niño:  During El Niño, the pressure near Tahiti becomes lower than normal and pressures rise near Darwin.  In extreme events, this can actually cause the trade winds to reverse.  This brings dry winds from the Australian outback and starves eastern Australia of precipitation, resulting in drought and more bushfires.


La Niña:  During La Niña, the pressure near Tahiti rises and concurrently falls near Darwin.  This increases the trade winds.  It also bunches up very warm water near the coast of Australia.  The air getting this injection of extra moisture is carried further inland than normal where it rises and forms thunderstorms/rain.  This year has been an extreme example of that, and the scale we use to measure the atmospheric strength of the El Niño/La Niña cycle has broken records.

In fact, the most recent data shows a pressure of 999.5mb at Darwin with a pressure of 1013mb at Tahiti... resulting in a Southern Oscillation Index of 39.  It could go higher yet.  In December, the monthly SOI of 27 was the highest ever recorded for December and the highest of any month since November of 1973.  What happened in Australia during the summer of 1973/74?  Do you see where I'm going with this?

I really hope people get a chance to dry out... but things don't look good.  Hang in there.  As with everything, this, too, shall pass.

[Ban my account ffs!]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12260724

The floods are still affecting many near the northern Victoria border as the moving "inland sea" slowly moves down stream.

For the moment it appears much of eastern Australia is dry... a much needed break at least for the affected regions.