OT Thoughts are with you Brisbane.

[Flyby PC 23]

As a perrenial whinger about the UK weather, I should learn to keep my trap shut when I see what the West Coast of Australia around Brisbane has to put up with.

 

Hope you Aussies who visit here aren't in the firing line for some of that evil looking flooding, but my thoughts are with you if you are. Difficult to tell from the TV, but when plains are under several feet of water, you know that's a LOT of water.

[Hasse Wind 46]

It looks really bad down there, that's true. I hope everything goes well, or as well as possible under those awful conditions.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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As I posted in Smilingmonkey's thread earlier this AM, I'll be saying a prayer for the folks in that corner of the world, and I hope it gets better very soon for you all.

 

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[Flyby PC 23]

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As I posted in Smilingmonkey's thread earlier this AM, I'll be saying a prayer for the folks in that corner of the world, and I hope it gets better very soon for you all.

 

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So I see now Lou. Please excuse my inattention, I wasn't following that Smilingmonkeys thread that closely.

 

Hope you're OK Smilingmonkey, but I appreciate that 'OK' is relative under the circumstances. Be a while before life in Brisbane gets back to normal.

[smilingmonkey 1]

Well...the floods are receding now and the massive clean up is beginning...

 

The place is a bloody mess.

 

People are helping each other out though, lots of volunteer stuff going on...

 

Interesting how a disaster brings people together.

[Olham 164]

Yes, that is the good part of it - we notice each other again much more.

When we had 5 feet of snow even in my hometown back in 1978, and had to shovel free

some walk ways, we asked the older neighbours, if they needed anything from the shops.

We then pulled all shopping on a sleigh back from the city and gave everyone their bred and stuff.

It was a feeling of good community.

[carrick58 23]

Good luck to all down under. I have heard bad reports about the flooding it sounds bad

[Olham 164]

Even the Kangaroos are getting saved - they may not be exactly sure how to think about it, but no one jumped back in.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/12/11/kangaroo-flood-rescue-mission-launched-in-australia-pictures-115875-22775237/

[Hasse Wind 46]

Water is indeed a powerful element. It's vital for humans and all life on Earth, but when it's flooding, the results look like somebody carpet-bombed the area. It's scary to see big cars getting thrown around like paper by the masses of water. It's fortunate that Australia is such an advanced nation, otherwise the cost in lives lost would surely be much worse.

[Bullethead 12]

As a resident of Lousy Anna's armpit, I've been through my share of hurricanes and flooding. So my thoughts are with the Aussies currently on the wrong end of Mother Nature.

 

I sincerely hope that my image of Australia as a fairly civilized part of world is true. If that's the case, then you all should be able to avoid the complete anarchy and region-wide outbreak of banditry we experienced when that 3rd World s**thole known as New Orleans got inundated and its tens of thousands of scumbags went rampaging all over. Here's hoping.

 

 

[markl 1]

As a perrenial whinger about the UK weather, I should learn to keep my trap shut when I see what the West Coast of Australia around Brisbane has to put up with.

 

Hope you Aussies who visit here aren't in the firing line for some of that evil looking flooding, but my thoughts are with you if you are. Difficult to tell from the TV, but when plains are under several feet of water, you know that's a LOT of water.

 

Thanks for the kind thoughts.

Well the water is going down now. I have relatives in Brisbane and Grafton (East Coast), they have been lucky so far.

 

I have been in Queensland during floods in the past and was cut off in my old trusty landrover in the Gulf country. It is just amazing how quickly the water can come up and spread.

 

Our thoughts go out to all the families with lost ones, never an easy time.

 

Regards MarkL

Sydney Australia

[markl 1]

Good thing we have boots on the ground, over in OZ

 

Might there be any shred of truth about the DAM as mentioned, or have we been treated to a fabrication

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/c...-disaster.html

 

The article looks a little one sided, but there is a fair bit of discussion about it here as well. One thing for sure, last year water was in very short supply. I know people in both NSW and QLD that had to buy water as their supply completely ran out and farmers had to shoot stock because of the lack of water.

 

It is really bad luck to be in drought then flood all in one year. But like Florida I doubt any planning can cope with these large scale disasters.

 

The main thing is that while the media play the blame game there are plenty of people on holidays who have gone up there to help out. People have rallied together to get in and do what can be done.

 

The real fight will come when the insurance companies make it known what they will pay out.

There is talk of the Govt. making manditory flood definitions for insurance. A lot of people pay for insurance but never get a pay out like after the fires. I am sure there will be a lot of donation drives very soon to help out once the situation calms down. We all pitch in as you never know who will be next.

 

Regards MarkL

[Bullethead 12]

The real fight will come when the insurance companies make it known what they will pay out.

There is talk of the Govt. making manditory flood definitions for insurance. A lot of people pay for insurance but never get a pay out like after the fires. I am sure there will be a lot of donation drives very soon to help out once the situation calms down. We all pitch in as you never know who will be next.

 

In the US, in most cases floods aren't covered by the basic homeowner's insurance policy: you have to get this as a separate thing at extra cost, if it's available at all. Insurnace companies won't write policies for places that flood frequently, which is a good sign that you shouldh't build a house there in the 1st place .

 

I think this is perfectly reasonable. The insurance business is based on the statistics of long-term averages. Houses typcially burn, have trees fall on them, or whatever, at a predictable rate, so there's the normal cost of doing business. You can therefore sell policies against such things priced to provide a continuous profit margin and get along just fine. What screws this up is wildcards: fires in large commercial businesses, natural disasters, etc. These represent huge expenses for insurance companies and aren't very predictable. Thus, the companies try to minimize their impact by limiting their exposure to them (such as with separate flood insurance) and charging higher prices for the predictable losses. I can't really blame them--they're in business to stay in business.

 

What I do get mad about is the large number of people who aren't aware that their homeowner's policy doesn't cover floods. It seems that most such folks really don't have the money to be owning houses anyway, but got them via government subsidies at my expense. You know, exactly the thing that caused the current recession . Because the government does most of the paperwork, these folks don't pay attention to the details of the transaction so don't realize they don't have flood coverage. Then when their houses wash away (subsidized housing tends to be in less-desirable locations, including those that flood more often) and the insurance company says it won't pay, they scream that the "evil" insurance company is screwing them and demand the government force them to pay. No matter how the issue is resolved, it's more money out of my pocket, either in taxes or higher insurance rates. On top of what these people already cost me beforehand in taxes, crime, etc., and of course the recession. Governments should stay out of the housing business entirely, IMHO. It only leads to trouble.

 

I hope the Aussies have a better way of doing things.

[Javito1986 14]

It is indeed "impressive" how badly our fragile little civilization collapsed in New Orleans in Katrina's immediate aftermath. Reminded me of the time I've spent in Central America, both in times of war and "peace" when banditry and the resultant vigilantism are rampant. Less said of that the better. One would think the U.S. is immune to such disorders but Katrina was a sobering lesson for me.

[Bullethead 12]

It is indeed "impressive" how badly our fragile little civilization collapsed in New Orleans in Katrina's immediate aftermath. Reminded me of the time I've spent in Central America, both in times of war and "peace" when banditry and the resultant vigilantism are rampant. Less said of that the better. One would think the U.S. is immune to such disorders but Katrina was a sobering lesson for me.

 

Actually, civilization didn't collapse in New Orleans due to Katrina. It had already collapsed there decades earlier, if indeed it had ever existed at all. Whenever you have generations of ingrained, habitual government corruption on the scale of 3rd World regimes, you get the associated 3rd World levels of crime, poverty, lack of education, etc. Prior to Katrina, New Orleans was already one of the world's most dangerous cities, right up there with Bierut, Baghdad, Juarez, etc. 80% of the inmates in the Angola Prison, Lousy Anna's dumping ground for its worst offenders, were from New Orleans. So many crack rocks get dropped on the sidewalks that the pidgeons can't fly straight and have become a sort of pathetic tourist attraction. Fortunately, except for Katrina, the thugs of New Orleans stay in New Orleans.

 

However, because NO relies on tourism, its government has always been adept at hiding such problems from the outside world. True crime rates were long suppressed with the same ease with which thousands of residents, dead for the past century, could still vote and count towards the census. Thus, the whole police force concentrates on keeping the small tourist area relatively safe (as in less than a dozen getting shot during Mardi Gras) and lets the rest of the city run wild. As a result, to the rest of the country, NO is (or at least was) viewed as a fun place full of happy people who do nothing but party. Sure, sometimes folks get hurt but hey, it's a wild place, and there's just enough perceived danger to add a bit of attraction.

 

If you had this view prior to Katrina, then naturally you'd think civilization collapsed under the strain of the disaster. But what really happened was merely that a pre-existing population of completely uncivilized savages suddenly had to migrate in search of dry land, and took their traditional way of life with them. Fortunately, they soon discovered that their behavior wasn't tolerated in even marginally civilized places like Baton Rouge, so those that didn't wind up dead or in prison soon started drifting back to New Orleans where they could live the lifestyle to which they were accustomed. Naturally, this process caused a reshuffling of the criminal pecking order in New Orleans, so the first years after Katrina saw even more crime than usual, although a new "stable" configuration seems to be emerging now so crime is back to nearly "normal" pre-Katrina levels.

 

But since Katrina, national attention has been kept on "rebuilding" NO, so what's happened there hasn't stayed there like it always has before. Too many witnesses now to hide all the bodies. So suddenly NO is now ranked as one of the most dangerous places in the whole world. Outsiders, remembering NO's pre-Katrina image, find this shocking and assume that this all part of the storm's aftermath. But it's really just them finally noticing something that's been well-known for generations in Lousy Anna.

[Bullethead 12]

Aside from political differences which undoubtably played a part in this disaster, it's a sad commentary on what lengths man will go to, in the act of screwing-over his fellow man, while in the pursuit of the almighty Buck.

 

Imagine, putting houses on land that was proven a flood plain a scant twenty years ago, and not telling anybody about the possible dangers

 

I read somewhere, in connection with natural disasters, that the US is too young to have ruins pointing out bad places to build cities. The same applies to Australia, OTOH, Europe is covered with ruined cities, many the result of recurrent disasters. Eventually people learned their lesson and moved elsewhere, and that happened thousands of years ago. Thus, with a few notable exceptions, European cities of today are built in proven safe zones. But in the US at least, giving up on a city, no matter how stupidly sited, is anathema. Thus, for example, the effort to "rebuild" New Orleans despite it being below sea level and surrounded by water (and in dire need of euthenasia anyway), or rebuilding San Fransico after its big quake (which is sure to happen again fairly soon).

[almccoyjr 7]

Well...the floods are receding now and the massive clean up is beginning...

 

The place is a bloody mess.

 

People are helping each other out though, lots of volunteer stuff going on...

 

Interesting how a disaster brings people together.

Sorry I haven't posted sooner, but your post just brought up many bad, helpless feelings. My community was hit with flooding back in 9/09. It was catastrophic but the extent to which Brisbane is suffering is so much greater.

 

It makes me sick to this day when I see this happening.

 

God Bless.

 

plug_nickel