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Aussie City Braces For Worst Flood In 118 Years

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the good-luck-down-there dept.

aesoteric writes "As parts of the Australian state of Queensland either experience or prepare for the worst floods to ravage the state in over 100 years, Australia's techies have taken it upon themselves to keep communications services on as the crisis unfolds. One man is mirroring flood information from a faltering Brisbane City Council website, and others have opened WiFi channels in their neighbourhood whilst mobile signal gets choked. But there is major damage to telco networks — at least one major fibre link has been severed by flood waters, telephone exchanges have been knocked offline and cell towers put on battery or generator back-up (or offline altogether). On a sombre note, the floods have claimed 10 lives, including children, and 78 people are still missing after facing a torrent of water up to 8 metres (26 feet) high."

8 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. Please Donate by H0D_G · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Queensland Government has set up a disaster relief fund for donations

    http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html

    Please Give.

    --
    Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home!
    1. Re:Please Donate by Moryath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's awesome to see techies and everyone else working to do their part.

      What I find actually uplifting is this part: On a sombre note, the floods have claimed 10 lives, including children, and 78 people are still missing after facing a torrent of water up to 8 metres (26 feet) high."

      Think about that number and compare it with the number of dead and missing from many "classical" disasters - for floods, the usual death count is in the multiple thousands. Roughly 3000 in the monsoon floods for the past few incidents in Asia, for instance.

      It's a tragedy when people die in a natural disaster, but if the death count is below 100, they did a great job preparing and minimizing casualties!

    2. Re:Please Donate by antifoidulus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Thats not really a very good comparison, Australia has one of the lowest population densities on the planet, even the cities aren't anywhere near as dense as those in places like Indonesia and Bangladesh. Comparing just the sheer # of casualties isn't a very good way to judge disaster preparedness per se.

      --
      Monstar L
    3. Re:Please Donate by AlecC · · Score: 5, Informative

      Regrettably, I have seen factual reports from a fairly reliable source (The Economist) that exactly what GP said is happening, A lot of flood relief money is sticking to fingers or being routed to the preferted groups rather than the needy groups.

      It may or may not be racist, but Pakistan has a pretty corrupt administration. The President used to be known as "Mr 10%", and many accusations of corruption have been made against him. He asserts, possibly correctly, that the accusations were political; on the other hand, it may be that his non-prosecution is political. Whichever way it is, it is an atmosphere in which heavyweight accusations of corruption are not enough to block a political career.

      --
      Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
  2. It's Fast by Mike+Mentalist · · Score: 5, Informative

    This BBC video link shows how fast the flooding is - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12161502

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    I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
  3. Re:Remember when you're reading this... by Dexter+Herbivore · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you want to feel the effects of climate instability, you just gotta come down here, where it's sunny and 36 degrees celsius (96 degrees fahrenheit) one day and raining and 22 degrees celsius (71 degrees fahrenheit) the next.

    It's been fucking insane.

    Hell, that's Melbourne weather at ANY time during the summer.

  4. Re:Sigh... by Cimexus · · Score: 5, Informative

    The people in Brisbane know full well that certain areas are flood prone, especially those that lived through the 1974 floods. Seems that the current flooding is probably a 1-in-100-year kinda event so they got a bit unlucky. But everyone in these areas in Brisbane knows and accepts the risk.

    As for the flash flooding in Toowoomba, well that's a different story. I find it hard to fault their choice of where to live. Far from being a flood plain, Toowoomba is on the top of a freaking plateau 700 metres above sea level, and nothing even remotely like this has happened in its recorded history. A freak event, and very sad.

  5. Re:Brisband = Brisbane by ilsaloving · · Score: 5, Funny

    Actually, the worst (best) typo I've ever seen was someone giving a link to the Symbian website (www.symbian.com), but they forgot the m (www.sybian.com).