Flooding update

Previously, I'd said we had no worries regarding the flooding here in Queensland, Australia.

The situation has changed.


So far, so good for our specific neighborhood. It rains sometimes, then stops. Sometimes heavy rain, sometimes a drizzle. Water covers sections of the road, about axle-deep -- but we have a four-wheel drive with a pretty high undercarriage (and the water isn't "rushing" water -- it's fairly still) -- so we just drive on through. And four or five hours after it stops raining, the standing water has drained off.

However: Today they shut down parts of the downtown area, and some neighborhoods adjacent to downtown (most with "Valley" in their name...) have flooded. Also, we were phoned about 2pm to come get the boys out of daycare: they were shutting it down early, although a handful of staff would be staying behind to look after the kids whose parents weren't able to get them.

They're expecting the floods to equal, or possibly surpass, the 1974 floods (which were the largest since the 1893 floods -- a nice graph and timeline here).


For the last "big" flood (1974), the water blocked off sections on the road, up and down the street from the trio of properties belonging to my wife's family -- so they were cut off for about a week. However, it didn't reach the houses.

We have about a metre of slop, I reckon: as long of the flood levels don't exceed the 1974 levels by more than a metre, it shouldn't reach the house.


I'll try to post a blog entry every day or two. If it goes more than two or three days without a blog posting, it could mean that I'm still at home, but just lacking phone service (DSL) or electricity. Somewhat ironically: if we get evacuated, I probably **would** continue to post blog entries; presumably the centre we go to would have some sort of internet access (in this modern day and age; for contacting family).


--GG