Natural Disasters

[Kruspe12]

Hey, I know some people are probably sick of hearing me talk about the floods here in Australia, but in the last 24 hours it has gotten to the point of an extreme catastrophe.

I thought I would make a thread for people to post about any extreme weather or natural disasters that are happening in their countries. Europe and Britain are suffering from severe snow storms, other places have had earthquakes in the last couple of months and here... Well we have bushfires on one side of the country, and insane floods on the other. Feel free to post news stories, news coverage, personal or published photos or personal accounts of yourself, family or friends that have been affected by these tragedies.

Please don't flame people or turn this in to a discussion about Global warming etc. This is merely to give us your accounts of these events and share stories of those affected, not to make jokes at the people who are finding it hard to cope during these difficult times.


So, here in Queensland Australia, in the last 24 hours there has been a freak storm which caused major flash flooding to the town of Toowoomba, west of Brisbane. An 8 metre wall of water hit without any warning and 8 people have been confirmed dead thus far, and 72 still missing. Of the 8 people dead, 4 were children. Death toll is expected to rise dramatically.

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

The water has flowed down to Brisbane's major dam, the Wivenhoe Dam which was built after the last major flood in 1974. It is currently running at 173% and they will have to release that water. Much of Brisbane city will be affected, with some flooding already occurring in the CBD. Caboolture just north of Brisbane is completely isolated.


http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news...-1225985436806


The area that has been affected by the floods is stretched over about 1000km at least (about 1200 miles at a guess) and is looking to get worse as it continues to flow down in to New South Wales. To give you an idea of just how widespread this is, I think this video explains it very well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AbBEyXOfzQ&feature=sub

[DONNIemo]

Yeah as you know I have been watching the news at work and worrying sick. This is horrible. We are all donating money at work to the flood appeal.

It's now 10 dead, 6 were only children and will saddly rise in the night. I dread the morning news.

[Zombie Fred]

You guys have got it way bad out there on how bad mother nature can be bad in Australia. I wish you all the best and hope that you can try and prevent any further damage that is already happening, the pictures and footage I have seen has been insane to what other stuff has occured in the world.

[Pikminister]

Natural disaster have always been around. When ppl talk about 'freak storms' they are merely saying that as far as they know (or what has been recorded), it has never happened before. But it probably has happened before. There just wasn't as many ppl and technology around to even notice any of it.

We do know that some crazy shit has happened before. Like volcanos/floods/earthquakes erasing entire cultures.

Obviously some religions are trying to cash in on the wacky natural disasters and make the claim that the end times are near.

[kevstah2004]

Australia is reminding me of the June 2007 flood here but then again that only happened because the drains haven't been updated here since victorian times and there hasn't been a single hill in Hull since before the blitz. I also experiened my first mini earthquake last year too. I guess with the freak world weather at the moment though is just the fact that thored out Antarctica has go somewhere though, it's all relative.

[Mr. Spencer]

AND you failed to reclaim the Ashes.

[Kruspe12]

AND you failed to reclaim the Ashes.

Ok, kinda not thinking about the cricket anymore. There's a lot more severe things happening to my friends and family than that.

[Mr. Spencer]

I try to shift the focus away from human interest stories. They're a dime a dozen these days.

If you haven't lost any direct family to the floods, consider yourself lucky and live as normal. No-one can do a thing about natural disasters except to simply recover from them, things like this happen all the time across the world. It's nothing new and it's nothing to write home about. Disasters happen.

"RENEGADE +5"

[Enetirnel]

Well, just found out some of my close family friends had to evacuate a little while ago. Their brand new house and store are going to be under three metres of water soon.

So far the water is slowing creeping up the hill near my one of my Aunt's houses, one of my Uncle's places and my cousins too up that way that live in separate areas of Queensland.

I'm not going to post the news article stuff everyone has seen already, but instead
here's some photos from my Aunt, and family friends taking photos down the street while they were moving things such as their full size harp out of their new house. (Excuse my Aunt's flipped images, she was taking them on her phone).

Essentially, all of them have been able to hear the rivers. We were on the phone with our family friends' earlier and we could barely hear them over the sound of the river rising nearby.

Spoiler:

show spoiler

Slightly down the road to my Aunt's house, going down towards the water is the city centre off the top of my head, as it's been a while since I've visited them.



Water near one of the bridges that has to be crossed to get to their house.

Literally down the road from my Aunt's place.


Not a swamp or anything, it's actually the driveway/garage area to my family friends' new house.

The backyard...

The rest of their backyard...

Down the driveway

Down the road a bit...

Next door's place...

Again...


Down the road a bit more...

The low creek bridge with the water measure.

People and kids getting ready to run away from the creek...

As it suddenly began to rise to that in a short span of time (this particular shot was taken on the other side, they had to go the other way to get back home).

That creek and the majority of the road there, was like that late yesterday.

My Uncle's thought on the matter - "FUCK OFF Rain we've had enough!" as he's been telling us all.

The images first up are from my Aunt, the second lot are from our family friend's - those were taken late yesterday. Their house, brand new and they had just finished up the garden and the like is going to be completely underwater and so is their store shortly.

Fucking rain, had we lived up a bit closer (such as the Central Coast) instead of being in Sydney we would have been up there helping them and other people instead of sitting around on our asses phoning around and trying to keep checkups on family and friends whilst they keep broadcasting updates when people sitting in on those could be fucking helping people!

So far as I'm aware, none of our family or family friends' have been hurt and I'm hoping it'll stay that way.

[Kruspe12]

I try to shift the focus away from human interest stories. They're a dime a dozen these days.

If you haven't lost any direct family to the floods, consider yourself lucky and live as normal. No-one can do a thing about natural disasters except to simply recover from them, things like this happen all the time across the world. It's nothing new and it's nothing to write home about. Disasters happen.

"RENEGADE +5"

If you don't like what we're discussing then no one's forcing you to post in this thread. I'm not forcing anyone to respond if they don't have to, but there are people like me who have been directly affected and others on here who's families are also being affected. I know that they're unavoidable and that these things happen all over the world, but that's no reason for you to try and crack jokes just because you're tired of hearing human interest stories.

Simple - don't like, don't read.

For those that are curious, the death toll has risen to 12 so far, people missing has dropped to 49. These numbers having been fluctuating all day, and some of the deceased were not even included in the missing persons total. So we have no idea how bad the numbers could get at this stage.

[Enetirnel]

Simple - don't like, don't read.

For those that are curious, the death toll has risen to 12 so far, people missing has dropped to 49. These numbers having been fluctuating all day, and some of the deceased were not even included in the missing persons total. So we have no idea how bad the numbers could get at this stage.

I have to agree, despite that Australia is commonly known to joke through harsh times - this isn't one where we're going to joke about the cricket and the like with you lot over in England. It was crappy enough we lost the Ashes AGAIN to then get hit with this shit here, and knowing that there's a hell of a lot of hardcore Cricket fans up north more than around here locally - my family and friends' are having an overall shitty time and the jokes are bad timing on your part Mr. Spencer, so if you don't want to read about people trying to vent their stress about it - then simply don't go into the topic titled NATURAL DISASTERS, though I'm sure you certainly wouldn't be cracking any jokes if you had family, friends or even your own property being affected by such an issue.

Though, I might add to that - those totals are just being considered as guesses as the numbers have been changing all day and that with areas that are completely underwater, some houses' having essentially exploded due to the sheer amount of water - there won't be any sort of proper numbers for a while until the rain stops, areas can have the water drained and some proper searches' can be conducted without flash flooding possibly sweeping more missing and/or dead people away.

Aside from family, friends we also own land up north and it was flooded last year during the period when the dam was overflowing. I don't know how our neighbors are coping up there, but all I can say is I'm glad I convinced my parents not to go up when the flooding started as we were going to check on the crops and the like we've been organizing.

If we had, we may have gotten trapped up there ourselves.

[Edit] I wouldn't be surprised if there was a larger amount of dead persons', considering that after that bad snowstorm we got a few years ago (during the period when we kept having those fucking bad fires down towards Canberra that I went through) - the flooding during that period was quite bad down that way, to the point that some stupid people that thought they'd be fine and ended up going to the lake around Jindabyne ended up getting swept up, got trapped in the houses from Old Adaminaby and drowned, crushed and other things from the melt water.

So, really we're not going to get anything exact until the weather dies down a bit and they can send in some search parties (hopefully it won't be the same scenario with people missing as what I saw at Jindabyne...)

[DONNIemo]

I try to shift the focus away from human interest stories. They're a dime a dozen these days.

If you haven't lost any direct family to the floods, consider yourself lucky and live as normal. No-one can do a thing about natural disasters except to simply recover from them, things like this happen all the time across the world. It's nothing new and it's nothing to write home about. Disasters happen.

"RENEGADE +5"

Heres an idea, stop being a dickhead for once.

This is seriously fucking our country right now and noone is finding your jokes funny.


So this is funny is it??





13 people are now dead, with many many more missing.

[Mr. Spencer]

It appears that my attempts to alleviate the negative vibes with humour have failed. Even my reference to Mass Effect didn't seem to take the edge off and instead I seemed to have incurred the wrath of the Australians. Don't you hate it when your mind knows what to say but you can't quite place it into words because of a lack of sleep?

I'd like to point out however that I was merely trying to raise the spirit of this thread, as it's always been my belief to respond to such things with humour and optimism. Yes, people have died. Yes, it's unfortunate. Yes, friends and family COULD be in danger. Yes, I extend my thoughts to those who have lost such during this time.

I shall begin writing up my apology speech to Julia Gillard. I can already see her men outside my apartment right now, ready to storm the place.

So this is funny is it??

Edit: Now, I was willing to apologise until I noticed you taking my words out of context and essentially accusing me of making fun of the fact that people have died. Which couldn't be farther from the truth, I might add. Your attempts to demonise me will not succeed, my friend. However, I will extend an apology to Enetirnel and Kruspe12 - at least you two were rational with me. However I will not be apologising to someone who makes such outrageous insinuations as you have, DONNIemo.

I mean honestly, at what point in your quotation of me did I make fun? Or does my realistic viewpoint offend you?

[DONNIemo]

Oh so your caring by still being a smart ass? How about you stop replying in this thread before you are banned. Fuck you.

[DONNIemo]

I shall begin writing up my apology speech to Julia Gillard.

That's you caring is it? You know exactly what you are doing and you could not care less.