Australian Flood

There are a bunch of guys in Queensland, but at present I haven't had any bad news from them. Brisbane city itself is in imminent danger and that will afect hundreds of thousands. Electrical supply companies have had to terminate services to 150000 homes yesterday as flood waters encroached on sub stations.

Crazy country we live in. 12 years of devastating drought ended in cataclismic flooding. And in the Southern states, swarms of locusts are eating all of our wheat, bran and barley crops. Our food crops are either being eaten or washed away, so looks like we will be reliant upon the generosity of supportive nations to feed us for the next year.

The flooded Brisbane river peaked twice yesterday, but thankfully nearly a full meter lower than expected. This saved countless homes and businesses, but it appears that over 12000 homes have been lost and the latest count is 15 dead with 70 still missing.

A clients factory had 2 meters of water go through and destroyed forklifts, machinery and all stock in the racking below 2m. A friend has a video store and it's in a valley with 3m of water ABOVE the roofline. A total loss.

Even the wildlife is having a tough time of i. This poor bugger has been hanging there for a week waiting for the water to subside.

Here's a couple of videos. In the first one, the level of the creek rises more that a meter in a minute or two and just picks up the cars from an apartment building carpark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJg2asABprc

This video is from this morning as the cleanup begins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDip6a9kfB0

Short news video showing the force of the water in Toowoomba about 80km inland from Brisbane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRv5RTUAP_U

Here, we deal with wildfires.

The flooding is unimaginable.

I have been watching videos of the flooding. Horrible.

I feel sad for the snake in your photo above. I am not sure I have ever felt bad for a snake before.

A real wild world we live in ... Rio in Brazil is also being flooded along with land slides.

Ron

I lived in Australia and spent a lot of time in Brisbane, it hits home when you see places you recognize submerged.

Having been through 2 floods here in Reno with 18-24 inches of water through the facility each time I can tell you the worst is not evident until the water recedes and you see the mess it leaves and you have to face the clean up.

One great thing is how Australians always pull together as a nation in times of need.

Julian

Yeah, that's true Julian. Aussie spirit is pretty strong.

Even today, three young ladies from Darwin in the Northern Territory shed their clothes down to their bikinis and setup a car wash donating every cent to assist the flood victims in another state. Apparently they did really well. A lot of really clean cars in Darwin tonight. Talk about putting your best breast forward for a good cause.

Even the kangaroos didn't get off lightly. This bloke is stranded good and proper.

Here's a pic of the chicks before they got down to their bikinis. It seems that people really got into the spirit of the fundraiser and were just pulling up to donate money and didn't care about the car wash.

Great effort the girls put in.

Here's another poor Kangaroo trying to swim for it's life.

Depth of water in a Brisbane suburb.

This is amazing too. These kangaroos are wild animals. Not used to humans and can be very dangerous animals when threatened. But here they are allowing themselves to be rescued from the water and placed into boats. How alian that must have been for the roos.

Aluminium dinghy full of roos.

Man, that's terrible. I have my boat in the garden during winter, it would float