I’m sure that you have seen the news of the tremendous floods in the State of Queensland. It is just too hard to imagine. How much water is needed to fill up homes to the roof and not just a few houses but hundreds.
Queensland is called “The Sunshine State” and they do normally have lovely weather but they have had widespread drought over the last few years so when it started to rain and rain everyone was happy. The reservoirs were filling up and the water tables were being replenished. Farmers looked forward to a bumper croup and were rubbing their hand with glee. Who can blame them as they have been through some pretty hard times and were hoping to pay back some of the debts that had piled up during the years of drought? Once it started raining it just couldn’t stop.
I looked it up on the Internet and see that Queensland is 1852642 square kilometres or 715309 square miles and we were told that three quarters of the state was affected by the floods. Some homes just had the water lapping at their doorsteps but others had water up to the roof and some were even swept away with the rush of water. Cars were overturned and immense damage done to the roads and the infrastructure. No one knows the full extent of the damage and so the cost of the repairs is still not known. The government is helping where it can, with grants of immediate cash for those who have had to evacuate their homes with just what they could carry or in some cases just the clothes on their back. There are many places where the public can donate cash to the victims and many millions have been collected already.
Maybe not as spectacular but just as heartbreaking are the floods in Victoria where 51 towns are affected, involving at least 4000 people and about 1700 properties.
Since we have lived in Australia I have been impresses with the SES volunteers. They are the Special Emergency Service and they do a great job in all sorts of emergencies. They assist the public in cyclones, storms, floods, earthquakes, cliff rescues, landslides and any other emergency you can think of. They give extra backup to the firemen and the police. Over this time of the floods I have seen them in action over and over again and I think they are great. We have seen them going into fast flowing water to rescue people swept away by the roaring water. They do a wonderful job and I am very glad to hear that the police are now prosecuting people who foolishly drive through flooded roads that have large “Road Closed” notices on them. They have been warned and warned over again but they think they know better and take a chance. The rescue squads have to risk their own lives to bring them back to safety. Obviously they cannot just be left there but I feel that it would be justice for them to be ignored. Why should all the volunteers put their lives at risk to save people who have knowingly and deliberately put themselves into those dangerous situations?
We’ve watched on television as the people of Queensland have rallied around to help with the clean up. Armies of people young and old being bussed into the affected areas to help shovel up the mud and try to make life a little easier for those poor people. I have been amazed at the progress that they have made. Yes, there is a great deal to do yet but they are working wonders.
One thing that always puzzles me when there is a disaster of any kind any where in the world. The leaders of the country tour the area to see the damage for themselves. I always think that it must take money, resources and manpower to bring in these people, to show them around and to protect them too. I can’t understand why they go or why the victims of the disaster want them to. What on earth good can it do? Surely they could just watch it on TV and send money, equipment and personnel to help and not tie up valuable transport and men showing them around. Obviously this is not the usual way of thinking though, as I have seen many news reports of places where the leaders did not go out to see for themselves and the public have complained bitterly. I remember how George Bush was severely castigated because it took him a little while to visit the flooded town of New Orleans. My reaction would have been “Stay home Mr. Bush, just send us your money”
Another awful thing about these Australian floods is just how few people were insured. Some of the homes were built on land that had been subjected to heavy flooding in 1976 so the insurance companies refused to give the owners flood cover. That’s fair enough, those people knew they were not covered and understood the risk. There were many other people who believed that they were covered for flooding only to discover once the muddy water had destroyed all there possessions and damaged their house that their insurance company is quibbling about the definition of the word ‘flood’. Did the water come from a downpour of rain or from the rising of the creek? They are now promising to hold a commission into the definition of floods so that this will not happen again, but what about those people who have paid their premiums for years believing that they were covered and now will get nothing as their furniture, appliances, clothes and personal possessions are trucked away to the refuse tip.
It also amazes me that through all of this ‘life goes on’. People in New South Wales go to the Christmas Sales and those in South Australia play cricket. People in Darwin hold a market and in Tamworth they hold their usual country music festival. I know that stopping all our activities will not help mop up the water but I feel rather guilty that I can do so little to help.
Queensland is called “The Sunshine State” and they do normally have lovely weather but they have had widespread drought over the last few years so when it started to rain and rain everyone was happy. The reservoirs were filling up and the water tables were being replenished. Farmers looked forward to a bumper croup and were rubbing their hand with glee. Who can blame them as they have been through some pretty hard times and were hoping to pay back some of the debts that had piled up during the years of drought? Once it started raining it just couldn’t stop.
I looked it up on the Internet and see that Queensland is 1852642 square kilometres or 715309 square miles and we were told that three quarters of the state was affected by the floods. Some homes just had the water lapping at their doorsteps but others had water up to the roof and some were even swept away with the rush of water. Cars were overturned and immense damage done to the roads and the infrastructure. No one knows the full extent of the damage and so the cost of the repairs is still not known. The government is helping where it can, with grants of immediate cash for those who have had to evacuate their homes with just what they could carry or in some cases just the clothes on their back. There are many places where the public can donate cash to the victims and many millions have been collected already.
Maybe not as spectacular but just as heartbreaking are the floods in Victoria where 51 towns are affected, involving at least 4000 people and about 1700 properties.
Since we have lived in Australia I have been impresses with the SES volunteers. They are the Special Emergency Service and they do a great job in all sorts of emergencies. They assist the public in cyclones, storms, floods, earthquakes, cliff rescues, landslides and any other emergency you can think of. They give extra backup to the firemen and the police. Over this time of the floods I have seen them in action over and over again and I think they are great. We have seen them going into fast flowing water to rescue people swept away by the roaring water. They do a wonderful job and I am very glad to hear that the police are now prosecuting people who foolishly drive through flooded roads that have large “Road Closed” notices on them. They have been warned and warned over again but they think they know better and take a chance. The rescue squads have to risk their own lives to bring them back to safety. Obviously they cannot just be left there but I feel that it would be justice for them to be ignored. Why should all the volunteers put their lives at risk to save people who have knowingly and deliberately put themselves into those dangerous situations?
We’ve watched on television as the people of Queensland have rallied around to help with the clean up. Armies of people young and old being bussed into the affected areas to help shovel up the mud and try to make life a little easier for those poor people. I have been amazed at the progress that they have made. Yes, there is a great deal to do yet but they are working wonders.
One thing that always puzzles me when there is a disaster of any kind any where in the world. The leaders of the country tour the area to see the damage for themselves. I always think that it must take money, resources and manpower to bring in these people, to show them around and to protect them too. I can’t understand why they go or why the victims of the disaster want them to. What on earth good can it do? Surely they could just watch it on TV and send money, equipment and personnel to help and not tie up valuable transport and men showing them around. Obviously this is not the usual way of thinking though, as I have seen many news reports of places where the leaders did not go out to see for themselves and the public have complained bitterly. I remember how George Bush was severely castigated because it took him a little while to visit the flooded town of New Orleans. My reaction would have been “Stay home Mr. Bush, just send us your money”
Another awful thing about these Australian floods is just how few people were insured. Some of the homes were built on land that had been subjected to heavy flooding in 1976 so the insurance companies refused to give the owners flood cover. That’s fair enough, those people knew they were not covered and understood the risk. There were many other people who believed that they were covered for flooding only to discover once the muddy water had destroyed all there possessions and damaged their house that their insurance company is quibbling about the definition of the word ‘flood’. Did the water come from a downpour of rain or from the rising of the creek? They are now promising to hold a commission into the definition of floods so that this will not happen again, but what about those people who have paid their premiums for years believing that they were covered and now will get nothing as their furniture, appliances, clothes and personal possessions are trucked away to the refuse tip.
It also amazes me that through all of this ‘life goes on’. People in New South Wales go to the Christmas Sales and those in South Australia play cricket. People in Darwin hold a market and in Tamworth they hold their usual country music festival. I know that stopping all our activities will not help mop up the water but I feel rather guilty that I can do so little to help.
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