Flooding Down Under-hope that you are all safe

[nhmaf]

The flooding in the Queensland region of Australia is truly terrible - I hope that all of our R65 friends are safe and dry!   I cannot recall how many members we have from Queensland, but I seem to recall that there were a few.  I hope that your bikes are OK too, but remember, as much as we like bikes - they can be dried out, cleaned up, and rebuilt if underwater for a month - the same cannot be said for the human body!  

I was amazed to hear that areas around Brisbane are now being evacuated, and the La Nina weather system is likely to maintain flooding conditions around that region for a couple more months yet!   Yikes!

Be careful out there!  We'll be praying for you.

-Mike

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

Amazing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt-FT-skins&feature=player_embedded#!

The same corner on Google Street View:

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Toowoomba,+Queensland&sll=-25.335448,135.745076&sspn=50.684499,77.607422&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Toowoomba+Queensland&ll=-27.569004,151.952333&spn=0.024918,0.037894&z=15&layer=c&cbll=-27.564465,151.949821&panoid=Yc0J_cZSLT_H4EhojK8PCw&cbp=12,280.49,,1,1.69

(thanks to SteveD on Boxerworks from Melbourne)

[nhmaf]

Jumpin Jehosaphat!!   That one is even worse than the others I saw!

[dav]

Words can't describe whats happening in QLD, to all our fellow members up there, be safe & take care.

[msbuck]

   OMG... Had no idea it was this bad.  Hope our members are safe.  

[dav]

Here's the site for donations that was requested from the other thread.

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

[Justin B.]

I have been watching this mess on Fox the past couple mornings.  They did a phone interview with a dude this morning who shot some some of the really scary footage that has been getting air-time and he said they were actually up in the mountains about 2000' above sea level!

Hopefully our Australian contingent has managed to avoid this disaster.

[Bing]

Hey all, as a Queenslander I have to say thank you all for the concern.

Personaly I was lucky, I live on the top of a hill about 8kms from the river. The CBD of Brisbane was shut down for a few days last week, so I had some 'Natural Disaster Leave'. I didn't even know that was on the books!  My Sister wasn't as lucky. She and her bloke managed to get the small stuff her laptop his guitar etc out before the flood, but the house they had just finished renovating was totally submerged. I spent the weekend helping strip the ceiling, furniture, carpets and everything else out of the shell so the assessor can do the walk through and condem it.

The thing that I will always remember is the way the community pulled together to help each other. There were people voluteering all over the place. Just turning up with a shovel or a broom and helping total strangers. People doing what they could to help.

Justin - that doesn't surprise me at all. The city of Toowoomba (which is where most of the videos of cars being thrown around was filmed) is on the lower edge of an escarpment formed by a huge old volcano caldera. A lot of the water that passed through Brisbane came down through Toowoomba and Ipswich first.

Here is the ABC News page with a really good set of comparison photos.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/qld-floods/beforeafter.htm

Sorry for the novel. Guess I had more to say than I thought.

[Darwin_R65]

Here's today's weather map for Australia.

[Tony_T]

 

Come and visit Australia!! Beautiful one day, flooded or on fire the next.........    

And you wonder why we're planning our next holiday in L.A..........

[nhmaf]

I don't know if i'd go on holiday to Los Angeles, California - a magazine just voted it the rudest city in the country!!:-)

[Darwin_R65]

And just when Queensland was starting to get the cleanup underway, along comes a cyclone (hurricane for the Americans) of fairly strong intensity.
Cyclone YASI expected to hit near Cairns as a category 4.

The forecast track is here.
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ65002.shtml

People living in coastal areas evacuated expecting storm surge, and high seas.

John

[Graeme]

And just when Queensland was starting to get the cleanup underway, along comes a cyclone (hurricane for the Americans) of fairly strong intensity.
Cyclone YASI expected to hit near Cairns as a category 4.

The forecast track is here.
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ65002.shtml

People living in coastal areas evacuated expecting storm surge, and high seas.

John

Well, it was upgraded to a category 5; the worst Cyclone in generations.

We are all now waiting to see what the damage is. There's no reports of deaths coming through yout & naturally hope it stays that way.

[Bengt_Phorqs]

Holy Cow!!  Floods and cyclones in Oz, turmoil in the Middle East, snow and ice in our part of the country.  Hope you Aussies are moving all of the bikes to higher ground.  Should we blame this on El Nino, or maybe GW Bush?

[suecanada]

Makes our nasty winter look positively sublime!! Take care over there!