I have seen entries in the past for help, posted by those of good heart, appealing for people to help places like Haiti, Pakistan, the victims of Katrina, etc and I guess I was wondering if I should start up a community to help Queensland, and if I did would anyone help me?
I know the disasters I mentioned are in no way the same, but when is a disaster ever the same as another and what makes it grab our attention? Is it the way the media treats the disaster? Or is it our connection to what we see?
We are only just really starting to experience the loss of life here due to the floods. We haven’t all been swept away in a tsunami, or the victims of a bushfire like we had on Black Saturday…but here in Queensland although you may not see it. We ARE hurting.
An area larger than the size of New South Wales is under water (or if you dont know how big that is then how about this quote from an article Now, following more than a decade of crippling drought, an area the size of France and Germany combined is under water in the Sunshine State (for US citizens – the size of Texas). Months of rain has turned vast tracts of dusty scrub into a tropical swamp.
) , and the rain still falls. Last night Toowoomba was the latest city to be inundated by flash flooding. The main street was hit obliterating anything in it’s path. Cars in the video I’m going to link to here were tossed like toys and this morning when I watched the news, they made a point I hadnt thought about. A lot of those cars still had people inside them. Some of the houses were hit by the water and were swept away. SWEPT AWAY. With the people still inside! It was that sudden.
Queensland cant take any more rain. In the southeast where I live, our dams are at 140% capacity and rising. They have to weigh up the problem of releasing water from the dams and watching as it adds to even more swollen rivers and worsening the flooding. Every mm that falls is added to the already sodden ground. The rain isnt soaking into the earth anymore, but rising, becoming more dangerous, adding to the swollen rivers and as areas flood…it is invading the water treatment plants. In Bundaberg and other flood affected towns the sewerage from the treatment plants has been a great concern that it may have also joined the flood water.
The mud left from those places that might have been lucky enough to have the water receed are now left with thick mud all through their homes, their possessions and memories lost forever, their business’ and the crops they had planted are destroyed. Adding to that is the real possibility of waterborne diseases. Mosquitoes carry Denghi fever and thas amount of water laying around stagnant is an ideal breeding ground. My ex father in law has worked on the cane (sugar cane) since he was 14. The crops are gone in Bundaberg. The smallcrops like tomatoes, the melons. peppers, etc… anything they grow in Bundy …is gone. Rockhampton is the same. My mum was trying to tell my brother, that although the bushfires in Victoria were tragic ( and growing up with a fireman as a grandfather and now my brother too believe me, we know what fire can do) she was trying to tell him the scale of the flood. He refused to agree that it was just as devestating.
I know you’ll all say, well I,agree with him because over 100 people lost their lives, fire fighters emergency service people and the families there too… and I DONT disagree.(My brother helped fight those fires and I was terrified for him and everyone else all through them.) They did loose their homes and family members. But for a lot of them who were lucky enough not to lose loved ones, their work was away from where the fires were.They still had a job to go back to that could help rebuild their lives and homes. Here in Queensland we too are starting to lose lives, but also livelyhoods. So far “At least 22 towns and over 200,000 people have been affected” quote from here A vast amount of the flood victims wont have jobs to go back to. I know in Bundaberg, the town runs on the sugar cane industry. The farmers affected by the floods in Bundaberg and other places have lost their crops, farms, and thats going to affect the prices of everything right across Australia. Meat, from the livestock that died. fruit and vegetables from the ruined crops, and although they can plant again when the land dries out…when is that going to be?
We are forcast more rain over the coming weeks. Although this heavy weather band is thought to slow by Wednesday, we are still forcast rain for the rest of the summer. This is our wet season and we have already had our annual rainfall for January and we are only 11 days into the month.
Where I live, I’m still safe. Though if mother nature were to want to block off where I am, all she would need to do is cut the road to the highway and the bridge to the penninsula and we’d be cut off. I’m lucky…though there are areas in Brisbane itself that have been told to prepare for flash flooding and we are constantly being reminded about the 1974 floods and what that will mean here if it happens again. We were close a week or so ago when the king tides and torrential rain brought the Brisbane river over the riverbank in some places …but for now right at this moment we arent sure whats happening. Not alot hopefully, as we already have enough water thank you very much lol
So after all that I guess what i want to know is, If I make a comm to help the floods…would anyone join? Feel free to link to my post…
heres a few links about the flooding in case you havent seen anything about it on your news services
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/8248084/Australian-floods-Rockhampton-residents-are-whacking-Queenslands-venomous-snakes-to-keep-themselves-safe.html
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/towns-fear-disease-outbreaks/story-e6freon6-1225978216435
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/food-tipped-to-rise-by-up-to-50-as-floods-take-toll/story-e6freoof-1225977487988
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/rush-to-move-stock-as-gympie-mall-becomes-a-creek-amid-rising-floodwaters/story-e6frg6nf-1225985230304
