"Biblical" Floods

As many of you probably know, the state of Queensland, the “Florida” of Australia, also referred to as the “Sunshine State,” has been hit hard over the last couple of days with severe rain and flooding.

Photo by Daniel Munoz/Reuters from the Brisbane Times

Not since 1974, when the Brisbane River broke its banks and flooded the city of Brisbane (Australia’s third largest city), have the dam and river levels reached these peaks. 75% of the state is affected by this unfolding natural disaster, and that is a lot of area, a little more than ten times the size of Florida (with a much smaller population, of course).

Image from The Vine

Over the past week, more than 9,000 homes have been flooded, 200,000 people affected with many people missing. Meanwhile several “inland tsunamis” have torn through towns, destroying main streets and peripheral buildings as cars were displaced by the waters force, flipping over one another while crashing into buildings and trees, as they moved with the direction of the water. The worst area to be affected by such an event was Toowoomba, which can be seen here. If one was walking down the town’s main street during this event, they would have been swept away by the crashing flood waters.

Photo by David Martinelli from The Australian

Today was d-day for Brisbane. At 5am water levels peaked to 4.6 meters (15.09 feet, which was one meter/3.28 feet below the 1974 readings) as the Brisbane River began to flow into the city. While the readings were lower than anticipated, there is a tremendous amount of cleaning up and work to be done in the state of Queensland. As I heard one resident who lost their home interviewed on the news say, “You got to be strong and keep on going. That's the Australian thing to do.” And that it is…

Photo by julie2371 from ABC Contribute

For donations to the Australian Red Cross, please visit this link.