
Brisbane floods: before and after - mjfern
http://www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/qld-floods/beforeafter.htm
======
keyle
I live in Brisbane (I'm fine). I helped with the clean up - cooking about 200
hot dogs last Saturday for the volunteers. The sight was absolutely
unbelievable. Houses were gutted. Garbage furniture all over the streets,
piles taller than me.

One thing I will never forget though. The smell.

~~~
neckbeard
Yeah, 200 hot dogs would leave a stench that time can't erase.

(But congrats for getting out there - you have the support of those of us in
the other states.)

~~~
keyle
There is so much to do. No doubt next week-end I'm at it again. there is an
unbelievable solidarity though.

You can also help, interstate, by donating money. They will need it.

~~~
hugh3
Anyone got any recommendations on where to best donate the money? Red Cross?

~~~
thret
If you donate at Crown they will match your donation. Probably have to
physically be here though.

------
follower
The 2011 linux.conf.au conference is going ahead next week in spite of the
flood: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2112337>

"The team encourages everyone to still come to Brisbane and support local
business and the community - we need your support!"

After having been through the after-effects of an earthquake where I live it's
been clear to see the difference it makes for businesses that can open to have
custom.

~~~
mmaunder
"But in the mud and scum of things, There always, something sings." ~Emerson

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recoil
There is an inherent conflict between using a dam for drinking water and using
it for flood management. That the Wivenhoe was and is used for both is not a
surprise, particularly after the droughts leading up to 2008, but the flooding
raises serious questions about how sensible that would be in future.

That said, the Wivenhoe in this case did precisely what it was meant to do,
and those who operated it did an admirable job under extremely trying
circumstances, IMHO. It simply wasn't designed to cope with the volumes of
rainfall that occurred, afaict.

I hope the forthcoming inquiry will not focus so much on the smaller-scale
"tactical" decisions that led up to the flooding (it will be news to nobody if
it turns out some mistakes were made: I'm sure there were), but more on the
state's water management strategy as a whole. Unfortunately the news reporting
I've seen so far has already tended towards the former.

It's water management strategy that has failed SE Queensland _twice_ in the
last few years: first when the water nearly ran out after the drought, and now
only two years later there's too much water by half. Neither drought nor flood
are strangers to Australia, so half-arsed measures and excuses should not cut
it for anybody. Increasingly unstable weather conditions caused by climate
change make it even more urgent that we get this right.

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rodh257
Also relevant to this is a submission I posted last week which didn't get any
attention unfortunately: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2096644> about a
site - <http://FightTheFloods.com> which my partner and I created to try and
help those who are in need of assistance (volunteers, supplies whatever) to
get the message out to people who may be able to help. Since I launched it
last Wednesday, it's reached 350+ people registered, and I've personally seen
a number of the requests for assistance be fulfilled, so I think it's made at
least a bit of a difference to someone, so therefore it's been worthwhile.

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blantonl
Interesting there is no "outrage" yet in the media regarding this disaster. I
was raised in New Orleans, LA, so I see these types of things differently. And
on the surface, Brisbane looks eerily similar to NOLA.

Is this an event that could have been prevented or is this a 1000 year flood?

~~~
hugh3
Differences between this and Katrina:

1\. The Australian media doesn't run on a 24-hour "outrage" cycle. We don't
have any way to blame this on some targeted political figure (though certainly
political figures have come in for some criticism). People _will_ get blamed
(particularly those who were in charge of the dam that was supposed to prevent
this from happening again) but it'll happen slowly and in a controlled manner,
not in a rapid flurry of 24-hour-news-station activity. We have a procedure
for finger-pointing, and it's called a Royal Commission... we'll spend a year
investigating and holding hearings and then eventually find the correct people
at whom to tut-tut.

2\. The death toll is relatively low. Very low in Brisbane itself (where the
rise of the floodwaters was gentle) and a mere dozen or so in other parts of
the state (where flash floods did occur). Sad and all that, but still on a
relatively small scale.

3\. No breakdown of order. Partly because a river flood is nothing like a
hurricane (the city itself wasn't cut off, and if you're in an affected area
you can walk five blocks to an unaffected area) and partly because of the
different quality of people in the two cities.

4\. New Orleans already had serious problems (poverty, race relations) which
were only exacerbated. Brisbane was a pretty nice place, and it's still a
pretty nice place (except for the parts which are now ruined).

In answer to your question, though, this isn't a once-in-1000-year flood...
more a twice-a-century sort of flood... we had floods in the 1890s and again
in 1974. The Wivenhoe Dam was constructed to prevent the 1974 flood from ever
happening again. It didn't work, partly because the folks in charge of
operating the dam didn't start releasing water until it was too late... which
was itself partly because they've been worrying for most of the last decade
about _running out_ of water and forgot that too much water is also a problem.

There's a reason why the architectural style known as a "Queenslander" is a
house on stilts though -- Queensland is not a stranger to floods.

~~~
clinton
... I would wait until the royal commission before I lay blame on dam
operators.

I suspect, that much of the flood waters came from the Lockyer Creek (the
waterway that was the source of those horrendous videos from Toowoomba) -
which actually feed into the brisbane river _downstream_ of Wivenhoe dam,
meaning that the dam couldn't stop a large chunk of the flood water from
entering the Brisbane river. See this map here:
[http://maps.google.com.au/?ie=UTF8&ll=-27.409109,152.603...](http://maps.google.com.au/?ie=UTF8&ll=-27.409109,152.603145&spn=0.045984,0.093513&z=15)

So maybe part of the blame should be placed on the Dam designers... But
perhaps other topological constraints prevented the Dam from being located
further downstream?

Lots of pieces to the puzzle and I don't think it is as simple as just the dam
operators waiting till it was too late..

~~~
hugh3
You could very well be right.

I certainly hope that the answer to "Why was Brisbane flooded" turns out to be
primarily "Mother Nature is a bitch" rather than "Random public servant Joe
Bloggs screwed up big time".

------
chrislloyd
This was done by @jimwhimpey. His (brief) write up:
<http://log.valhallaisland.com/post/2785174890>

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trafficlight
I really don't like that slide effect. A simple mouseover would have sufficed.

~~~
harto
Revealing the flood image from left to right probably would've worked better,
too.

~~~
jarek
My first reaction was "is this because they drive on the left?"

~~~
neckbeard
No, LCD screens work upside-down here, just like our drains are the "wrong"
direction.

(Tip for the sarcasm impaired: that's a bad joke.)

~~~
damncabbage
Proof:

[http://dump.robhoward.id.au/pics/photos/australian_monitor_o...](http://dump.robhoward.id.au/pics/photos/australian_monitor_orientation.jpg)

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akent
The "Rocklea (wide view)" one is particularly striking.

------
Dramatize
It was strange driving down the road, looking down a side street, and seeing
houses underwater.

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elvirs
are there crocodiles in the water?

~~~
mambodog
Not in Brisbane, but one of the other flooded towns:
[http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/979/168030177790121739415...](http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/979/16803017779012173941535.jpg)

~~~
keyle
It's all fake. However that went on national TV and we all had a good laugh.
We never saw that presenter girl again, after she insisted that was shot in
Brisbane.

~~~
hugh3
What do you mean it's fake? Is the croc photoshopped in, or is it a big rubber
crocodile?

If it's photoshopped it's pretty convincing, and if it's a big rubber
crocodile then... who has a big rubber crocodile anyway?

~~~
keyle
it's taken from way up north. Where there are actual crocs :)

No crocs in Brisbane. Every year is the same claims "I saw a croc!"

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mkramlich
lessons from floods, reinforced for the 9,753rd time:

1\. __ _have home on high ground_ __

2\. see 1

3\. see 1

all else is bullshit and/or out of your control (eg. level of flooding, degree
of local or government competence/planning/assistance, etc.)

~~~
d5tryr
that would be brilliant and uesful advice if we had a time machine...

~~~
rodh257
Someone probably said that in 74 as well

------
coin
The stunning imagery aside, these are satellite images, not aerial.

~~~
puffl
Actually, the photos are taken from a plane.

<http://twitter.com/#!/NearMap/status/26841599145156610>

~~~
coin
Well I was fooled. It's hard to tell these days.

------
elvirs
The government should have built the damn dam

