[Dustin Faulkner]

Hello:

I don't mean to seem like I've been living under a rock, but I just saw a news report about the terrible floods in Australia. I hope all of our Australian friends are ok.

I personally have done business with Darren Austin. Are you ok Darren?

My thoughts are with you guys. I like Australia. Australians are great people. You are in my prayers.

Sincerely,
Dustin Faulkner

[Timo Nieminen]

In Brisbane here, and it's rained here almost every day for almost 2 months (maybe every day), sometimes a lot. Over the last few days, some nearby areas got over 250mm in 2 days, which is about 1/4 of the average annual rainfall. So it's very wet, the dams are completely full - the dams are partly for flood control, but their flood mitigation capacity is full, so they can't take more water out of circulation.

The real fun will be at lunchtime, when we have an extra-high high tide. The houses behind mine are in a danger zone, although the last prediction was that they'd stay dry. Their rooftops are lower than my concrete slab, so I'm well up, and will stay dry. The forecast is for about 15000 people to be flooded out in the city, which means 15000 out of 1 or 2 million (depending on what's counted in the city). No fun for them, but it isn't going to be the total catastrophe some news reports make it look like. Here, mostly localised flooding near the river and creeks. Low-lying roads will go under, parks will turn into lakes (already happened around Christmas, but that was lesser flooding without significantly affecting housing).

Some rural areas are quite comprehensively flooded.

[Jean Thibodeau]

Sounds really distressing just for the property damage and could be more serious if lives have been lost or are in danger.

Hope it stops raining soon for you guys even a little damage to one's home is stressful much less being washed away and at times for these extreme cases Insurance doesn't cover the damage.

[Dan R]

Unfortunately lives have been lost in the flooding in Brisbane.

Darren should be ok as he is down in Victoria although I heard reports that Vic had flood warnings.

Its wet all over Australia. A lot of prime agricultural land is underwater or crops have been severely damaged.

[Tim Harris]

Darren in is the hills out of Melbourne, so he'd be OK . There are warnings for some inland rivers in Victoria, but Queensland has really copped it.

[Christopher Lee]

I live in a rural area of the Mary Valley on a creek which feeds the Mary River which flooded Gympie and Maryborough. The creek came up by about 12ft to 15ft at its highest and doubled in width to about 100ft which is the biggest flow we've ever seen it. It was still about 30ft from the house though so it wasn't too bad. The entire valley was cut off when the Mary came up; all three roads in or out were underwater. The town of Kenilworth was cut off for 4 days or more but it didn't phase most people, it was just more of an inconvenience than dangerous. The roads out of the valley; the bridge at a placed called Connondale was 10ft underwater and since the water has gone down its been condemned so won't be reopening for many months; the road to Mapleton was washed out by the Obi Obi Creek and is still apparently too damaged to use and the road to Eumundi just reopened this morning at about 10am. We couldn't get off of our property for 4 days because of the creeks in our area running over the roads. The power in the area has been out for 2 days or more now and the phones went down yesterday. We're on solar so were ok, though the sheer number of cloudy days over the past month has meant we're getting low. But all things considered though, we're fine, have no issues. Not like the poor buggers in Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley, bloody awful. Brisbane's been hit hard but then again so's Gympie and so many other places.

[Randall Moffett]

I hope that the rain slows some soon for you so things can start rebuilding. I have seen a few major floods while in England but the footage I saw on the news of what is going on over there was just scary.

I hope that you all are able to get back to your lives quickly and safely!

RPM

[Mark T]

Hi guys,

Thanks for your concern. As for me, I'm not flooded, but have sewerage backing up into my house (not fun!), probably going to lose one wall of the house from rain damage, and my local town might be evac'd and totally locked down (ie no access to food for some time) ... but I'm totally self-reliant for food, fuel, energy, and water, so am far better off than many people. Still haven't heard if some family members made it out of one of the worst-hit towns alive or not ...

[Jack W. Englund]

Wish all my friends "Down Under" the BEST
Jack

[Timo Nieminen]

The news from Brisbane: we're drying out. Some places are still under water, many places are still without electricity. I'm in a non-flooding part of a flooded suburb; we were without power for most of 3 days. Flood went about as predicted, the modelling was accurate. The water was a little lower than expected since the heavy rain stopped. Our previous major flood had been in 1974, described as the type of flood you get about every 100 years. This one was about the same. River level was close to the same level, so areas directly flooded by the Brisbane River went under to about the 1974 levels. Areas flooded by tributaries (like around my area) fared much better courtesy of intelligent flood engineering after 1974 - our water was perhaps 3 metres lower than in 1974.

A lot of people were affected, since there are a lot of people here - about 1/2 the population of the state is in the city and nearby. If this was not the case, we wouldn't make it on the news compared to other areas - we got far from the worst flooding in the state.

[Ralph Grinly]

All OK here in Sydney, very lil rain in this area. My thoughts go out to those in Victoria and Queensland who are flood affected.

[Jack W. Englund]

I have several "Mates" in Australia. It is NASTY

I am a MOD on a Scots forum. Several of our Top Assy. Makers are auctioning of items to help.

If interested PM Me ASAP

Jack

[Ryan J. Kadwell]

G'day all, long time lurker, some time poster.

Well, this is the first time I've been able to get online since the floods. Monday before last, I was in Barcelona when I found out about the inland tsunami that rolled through Toowoomba (where I predominantly live), and I lucked out because my unit is on higher land than that devastation could reach.

Without getting any sleep onboard from Barcelona to Brisbane, I rolled into Brisbane on the 11 Jan at night. I got stuck into getting my car ready to bug out if needed. So, I was still up until 2am on the 12th, when the gurgling in the sewers under the street inexplicably stopped. I came outside, curious, to see the water bubbling out and into the streets. So, we (my neighbours and I) began to wake everyone else up - the streets would just continue to flood. I helped drive some of the younger families to safety where and when I could, and the steady stream of moving people out of their units and into the garage space of people on higher ground commenced. This carried on well into the afternoon of the next day, and thankfully, I got the important things out of our flat here in Taringa, including my 68lbs yew longbow.

Fortunately, my fiancee (who was still in Spain with survivor guilt), worked behind the scenes to arrange for me to stay at a friends place while we wait for the waters to reach their peak and then recede again. She (Tess) ran me a nice bath (because by this stage I smelled like Cambodia), and plonked me down with some curry and a cold beer. I nearly wanted to cry in light of the enormous wealth of hospitality at the end of nearly four days with no sleep, the long hours put in with my community helping everyone else and putting out spot fires caused from flooded fuseboxes and coming to terms with the possibility of losing the flat in Taringa to the flood waters. Needless to say, I was asleep by 1500 and kept through until 07 the next morning.

Fortunately, the floodwaters peaked 3ft shy of getting into the unit. Once the waters receded, we were left with the clean up efforts which, again, the community prevailed and we all got stuck into helping out clear driveways of garbage and mud. So much mud.

I got a bout of gastro for my efforts the next day which was exciting to say the least, but that subsided totally after a day and 10lbs. My partner came in Tuesday this week, just as power was restored, and now I am happy to say the unit is as great as it has ever been. Now, our original task of finding a bigger place to live in is underway (the original reason for me coming home from Spain a week early), a task made more difficult now that the market is flooded with prospective tenants.

All in all, I am amazed by the scale and extent of this disaster, but it pales in comparison to the level of community spirit and ordinary people opening their homes and their lives up to others in order to help out their neighbour or total stranger alike, and the governmental response and support has run counter to this cynic's usual opinion to politics. The state premier in particular has won a lot of support for her earnest and wholehearted effort into getting this state back on track, and continues to do so it seems. Katrina this wasn't, not in scale certainly, but certainly not in response either.

This New South Welshman was ambivalent about Brisbane before, but now it is a city I love and would be proud to be counted as one amongst them.

But now as my home state and Victoria now do battle with the rain and mud, I hope that they too find, and are finding, that same level of generosity from friends, neighbours and total strangers, and the continual support from their elected government, to get through this make-or-break times.

My heart goes out to you all, and hope the Australian spirit sees us through to the ends we make for ourselves.

Kindest Regards,

Ryan

[Keith Burgess]

We have not had any rain here, or very little, this past week, but we were flooded in before that. Nothing like in Qld though. We live in a forest on a mountain ridge so there is no chance of our houses getting flooded. One town was hit by an inland tsunami, and lives were lost. It is going to take a lot of money and a long time to put things to rights re peoples homes. Last I heard the floods had reached Victoria.
Keith.
New England, Australia.

PS. You might want to look at this. Just pass your curser over the images to see before & after. My Brother-in law sent me this link, he lives in Brisbane Qld.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/qld-f...eafter.htm