UPDATES ADDED: See updates below the read more line
My heart goes out to Australia. The ugly side of this is that a portion of the tragedy may have been prevented with a dam to control floodwaters. But as James Delinpole writes:
Were it not for the actions of Environment Minister Peter Garrett, for example, the Queensland town of Gympie would not now be underwater. Unfortunately, Garrett took it upon himself to block the proposed dam that would have prevented it.
To add insult to injury, the state run warning system sent warning messages out six hours after the flood engulfed homes. – Anthony
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The disaster is extraordinary:
THE nation confronts its worst flood disaster in living memory, with 30 people believed dead and 90 missing in southeast Queensland.
The wall of water bearing down on Brisbane threatens to engulf thousands of homes and put more people at risk.
What I cannot understand is this: how was the possibility of such a danger not forseen, when climate experts and the Government claim they can predict the climate 100 years from now? How did this week’s rain come as such a surprise, when we now spend billions more on computer models predicting the future?
Some of the stories are tragic:
A three-year-old boy drowned at Ipswich, after floodwaters pulled him from his mother’s arms.
Sarah Norman yesterday told how her brother Sam punched a hole in the laundry ceiling and pushed their sister Victoria, 15, to safety after water flooded the brick home at noon on Monday.
“He went back to get Mum and Dad, but they had just gone. Victoria heard Mum scream,” Ms Norman said.
Steve Matthews, 56, an electrician and former pastor and his wife Sandy, 46, a teacher’s aide from Spring Bluff near Murphys Creek near Toowoomba, were found dead downstream on Monday afternoon.
UPDATE
How amazingly fast the floodwaters rose in Toowoomba.
UPDATE 2
The global warmists claimed Queensland’s rains would dry up, which is why the Labor Government built a desalination plant – now mothballed – instead of yet more dams:
(Premier Peter) Beattie said the effects of climate change on our region meant we could no longer rely on past rainfall patterns to help us plan for the future…
“My advice indicates if we continue to experience below average rainfalls it could take several years (anywhere from five to ten years) for our major dam system to climb back up past 40 percent even with purified recycled water, desalination and the other measures we’re taking to supplement our water supplies.
“Given the current uncertainty about the likely impact of climate change on rainfall patterns in SEQ over coming years, it is only prudent to assume at this stage that lower than usual rainfalls could eventuate.
But Heather Brown, a Toowoomba resident, says locals made other bad choices in the same mistaken belief that floods would not come:
Tragically, it seems some of the most basic rules of survival – and certainly the most elementary rule of town planning – were forgotten in the case of Toowoomba, a city that is dissected by East Creek and West Creek, two deceptively innocent looking little creeks that seem to run as much water as a decent suburban gutter for most of the year.
Admittedly, Toowoomba – Australia’s Garden City – has been battling drought for almost a decade… Along the way, the creeks have been prettied and preened and slotted into your typical modern urban plan. And the breadth of their flow – and their seminal right to a small flood plain – has been gradually stolen away.
At the intersections of Victoria, Margaret and Russell streets – where the boiling muddy tsunami was its fiercest and most graphically filmed – the city council had embarked on an ambitious beautification plan to turn the creek into a pleasing urban feature, complete with boardwalks, gardens, illumination and seating. Everyone thought it was wonderful, except for cynics such as my husband and me. In fact, every time we drove past the feature we would say to no one in particular: This little creek is going to make them sorry one day. Tragically, we were right.
Early yesterday morning I went back to the bruised and battered Margaret Street to support any local business that still had the heart to open. My coffee shop was handing out free coffees to the battered owners of the local businesses who had lost so much. When I went to buy my newspaper, the newsagent told me he was devastated, not because of what had happened but because the engineer who had worked on the beautification project told him he couldn’t make them listen when he pleaded for bigger pipes – “18-footers” he called them – to let the water through, because it simply didn’t suit the aesthetics of the architects and landscapers.
So that’s what happened to my city, folks, the same as happened to so much of flooded Queensland. We did stupid and really, really dumb things because we thought we could get away with them. We built the wrong sort of houses and the wrong sort of bridges. We built towns and suburbs on flood plains. And we ignored at our peril the forces of nature and the history of the great floods that have shaped this continent for thousands of years.
Read more at Andrew Bolt
UPDATE: The Herald Sun has a broad coverage Flood News Page here
UPDATE2: For some background on the Mary River dam that James Delingpole refers to there’s this entry in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveston_Crossing_Dam
The question is whether it was more important to save fish or to protect people. From the Wiki article there’s this:
A University of Technology, Sydney report stated that “the proposed Traveston Dam near Gympie could pump up to 400,000 tonnes of greenhouse emissions into the atmosphere each year” and “even desalination, itself a last resort in a severe drought, would result in fewer emissions at 280,000 to 350,000 (annual tonnes) to yield the same quantity of water”.[10]
They apparently went with the desalinization plant, now mothballed. It seems that AGW gets into every discussion, even dams. The question has been raised as to whether or not this damn could have saved these people. I don’t know that it would or wouldn’t, but it would seem to me that more storage upstream helps in both times of drought and flood.
If it turns out that the dam would have made a difference, I hope that Environment Minister Peter Garrett will be in a public enquiry, so that people who have suffered in this tragedy can express their grief. Politicians need to hear that such actions have consequences. This isn’t the first time environmental issues have been blamed in Australian natural disasters. See this previous WUWT article on what people went through with the brush fires.
The problem is that CAGW has convinced every gullible person (engineers and politicians alike) that Australia was going to turn into a CO2-baked waste-land.
Instead we have exactly the scenario which always happens when a strong La Nina follows an El Nino. Northern Australia and Indonesia get dumped on while there is not a cloud in the sky in the Nino regions and especially over the International Dateline area.
This is what happens in these conditions. Every weather forecaster in Australia should have been warning people for months now.
And every climate scientist should have been doing so doubly hard since their models are supposed to understand the climate so well.
Instead, we have people building desalination plants, egged on by climate scientists?
Its almost like we need “climate science insurance” now rather than flood and snow and cold temperature damage insurance.
FrankK perhaps you should read the email Stewart Franks sent the ABC’s Chris Uhlmann regarding Karoly’s interview.
he also sent the following email the David Karoly:
BTW Dr Stewart Franks is an Associate Professor in Environmental Engineering at The University of Newcastle.
The storage capacity of Wivenhoe dam is 1.15 million megalitres as a previous poster mentioned. This is regarded as the 100% level and is what dam authorities seek to keep the level at. In times of drought, such as we had last decade, the dam can go from 100% to less than 20% in the space of 5 years. This is why it would not be dropped back down to 60% as someone suggested should have happened.
Based on all available historical flood data it was felt that a flood mitigation capacity of 1.45 million megalitres would be sufficient to keep future flood levels below those of 1974. In this they have succeeded in the face of rainfalls and upstream river levels that far exceeded thos in 1974.
Floods are always devastating. A modern city, with over a million inhabitants running out of water is a far greater disaster. Our authorities walk a fine line on this and I for one will not criticise them for the decisions they’ve made and the current outcome.
In 1999 they had rainfalls that pushed the dam to 100%. Had they emptied the dam to 60% in response at that time, Brisbane would have run out of water in 2007 or 2008. This is something people need to keep in mind.
“Bob of Castlemaine says:
January 12, 2011 at 1:57 pm”
The bushfires in Western Australia were started by arsonists. Property lost, many hectares of bush burnt. Not sure if anyone has been lost.
Robert Ellison says:
January 12, 2011 at 4:23 pm
OK, now I’m confused. What then about this:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/alarming-report-on-risks-covered-up/story-e6frg6nf-1225986634328
Australia: Land of Droughts and Flooding Rains.
Every generation in Aus will face their Great drought, their great flood and their big bush fires. We are better prepared and equipped than ever to handle them but they still shock and awe us. But tragically we fail to learn the lessons of our parents and forget the past ,until it’s our turn, and then we ask why did we let houses be built there or why didn’t we build better flood mitigation infrastructure. And you know what? we will . This generation will build more infrastructure, more dams, and change the planning laws to make it safer for people in these areas. Thats what we always do.
Thats is, until the next generation…..
BTW
The Wivenhoe dam built after the 1974 floods (with over 2.5 Million Mega liters capacity ) has no doubt saved thousands of homes and businesses in Brisbane today.
Well done to those that had the gumption to build it.
As Rockhampton goes under again I saw these pics of people coping with the floods in traditional Aussie fashion.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/gallery-e6frg6n6-1225980659125?page=8
Conclusion:
Irresponsible Government officials, the lack to learn from the past and Green Stamped Warmist Government decisions have resulted in human disaster, deaths, wounded and billions of preventable damages.
I’ve been looking for authoritative sources regarding the proposed dam, but I can’t find much. That would include sources from proponents, so if you could share links to those studies you reference, I’d like to read them.
In the meantime, here’s a (biased) statement about the problems with the proposal. You can see it supports Scott R’s comment about the terrain and dam location.
http://mrccc.org.au/downloads/traveston%20dam/What%27s%20so%20wrong%20with%20a%20dam%20on%20the%20Mary%20River%20at%20Traveston%20Xi.pdf
Harvey Bay’s council’s submission on the Environmental Impact Study re: the dam:
http://www.isf.uts.edu.au/publications/herveybay2008submissiontravestoneis.pdf
And a (biased) press article on the flood mitigation effects of the proposed dam:
http://swampnews.squarespace.com/steveb/2006/11/1/traveston-crossing-dam-proposal-unlikely-to-mitigate-major-flooding-in-gympie.html
which seems to refer to the following document about the flood mitigation characteristics of the proposed dam (which wouldn’t have been completed yet, anyway, as the proposed completion date was 2012):
http://www.qldwi.com.au/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=tyZzwn3zBlc%3D&tabid=59&mid=518
The picture on the last page of that report is interesting — have a look at how much (or little) difference they believe it would have made.
I’m more with you here… but as I understand it the current number of lives lost in the Gympie area is zero, and I sincerely hope it stays there. If I’m right, then the question above is meaningless.
smacca says:
January 12, 2011 at 5:49 pm
FrankK says:
January 12, 2011 at 5:08 pm
“Of course the 1893 flood level some 3 to 4 m above the 1974 and current water level with no “global warming” to speak of during 1893 doesn’t seem to fit your theory dear Sir. ”
Frank,
The Wivenhoe Dam did not exist in 1974. How high do you think the current flood would have reached without the dam ?
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Estimates are the dam would have reduced the water level by 1m perhaps 2m. Lets say for argument 2m. Now:
Peak flood level in 2011 was 4.6m + 2m = 6.6m.
The water level in 1893 was 8.35m
Cheers.
Trucker Bob says:
January 12, 2011 at 5:21 pm
Hi Bob
Mate I’m in no position to correct anybodys post. I’m no expert in these matters.
My main point in the above comments was that when a natural disaster such as this occurs, a Royal Commission should be held, purely for the benefit of information gathering that may help with the inevitable future events. Think of it as a coroners report after a death.
Also, to correct the record. I don’t live in the Brisbane flood area. I live 30kms north in Strathpine which is in the North Pine Dam flood plain. My property is 5mins south of the dam with a creek bordering it.
My problem is/was the same as the Brisbane/Wivenhoe one where the North Pine Dam was frantically releasing water which inevitably added to the effects of the steady continual heavy rains that we suffered. My creek spilled over in a flash.
I don’t blame anyone for this. I believe the people responsible for the dams did their job to the best of their ability with the available information at hand.
p.s. At the depest end the water was 3 metres. I had to swim to get a couple of my horses whos hooves didn’t touch the ground. [we had a pleasant swim together] 🙂
[snip – commentary about Andrew Bolt’s blog procedures is not relevant here – moderator]
La Niña was a main factor, but I have to think the massive amounts of steam and volcanic aerosols from Merapi contributed the fuel to make this ever more devastating. I feel very ill, because I had the thoughts that this could very well happen.
Spectacular…but gravely so. What a disaster.
Our hearts go out to these Queenslanders. And for the beautiful city of Brisbane and surrounding communities.
Stay well.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Sorry, you lost me at Andrew Bolt… Let’s focus on assisting Queenslanders affected by the floods rather than blaming the ALP as Bolt tends to always do when a catastrophic event occurs.
As I write this I’m watching another boat pontoon float past on the Brisbane river and the police boat racing off to another incident. The volume of water flowing down yesterday had to be seen to be believed. There were boats with no one aboard that had dragged the anchor, there were boats and jet ski’s that were still on the pontoons. We took every effort to shore up areas in our high rise to stop the water entering the property, boarded up the vents that were usually well above the river, sealed doors to service rooms for the pumps etc. We removed all the cars just in case. We now have 3/4 of the carpark flooded and after a walk around Brisbane today we are not the only ones. Getting quite a bit of walking in now as the lifts are out of action until the water is emptied and the clean up done. Ours is only property damage, all the units and office survived, I feel sorry for the ones that own the houses you see in the photo’s or the people and families that make the headline in a tragic way.
They say the flooding is bad but the clean up is worse, evil smelling mud that gets into every corner.
Thanks to Bah Humbug for the link, very interesting, I’m sure someone will be squirming soon when asked about this.
“My advice indicates if we continue to experience below average rainfalls it could take several years (anywhere from five to ten years) for our major dam system to climb back up past 40 percent even with purified recycled water, desalination and the other measures we’re taking to supplement our water supplies.”
I’ve heard this kind of nonsense before. I was living in the Bay Area during the 1976/77 California drought. We were told by the experts that it would take years of above average rainfall to fill the empty reservoirs. Then came January 1978 and 31 days of rain. The reservoirs were filled in just a month.
Ryan Maue,
Not in the tropics. The Tropic of Capricorn runs through Rockhampton. Most of the affected area is south of the Tropic.
Okay, maybe I’m missing something, but I’ve just tried to check the terrain around the site of the proposed dam and I’ve discovered it was south of Gympie. My reading of the map is that means it was downstream of Gympie.
So, how exactly does James Delinpole think that this dam would have stopped Gympie from flooding?
I hope I’ve just got the location wrong. Can someone who knows the region clarify where the dam was supposed to be? Upstream or downstream from Gympie?
Marty says
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This type of rain was meant to be a thing of the past
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No one ever said this, you are making stuff up.
The frequency and severity droughts was predicted to increase. This was a speculative best guess conclusion because the climate modellers know that the models are not reliable enough to deal with regions.
The frequency of extreme weather events was predicted to increase. Extreme weather events means both hot, cold and wet events. This seems to be happening over the last few years but it could just be coincidence.
The amount of moisture in the air has trended up (3 out of 4 studies if memory serves). When warm moist weather systems hit cold weather systems you get more rain.
So the connection between warmer and rain is not a simple one.
Remember we have had record drought followed by a record flood so don’t dismiss the idea that this could be climate change-related to readily.
Fred from Canuckistan says:
January 12, 2011 at 2:51 pm
Wasn’t there a massive death count just a few years back when bush fires rean amok because the greenies have outlawed any brush clearing, even on private property?
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Maybe, and maybe it was because of the historically vicious weather conditions and greater population.
Garrett blocked the dam because Queenslanders DIDN’T want it.
Bolt’s article is justed designed to get support for the Queensland Liberal National party election platform of building dams.
Notice at lot of houses are on stumps. We are well aware of the risks of floods in Queensland.
To all those rambling on about the dam that was not built and any difference it would make. It is about the full flood mitigation project of many dams,levees and bypass channels that were never built, and were designed to not prevent floods but make them a minor inconvenience. This was prevented by many eco nuts whom have twisted the ears of government to protect some left handed lesser spotted toadstools, or some such nonsense. The engineers and scientists in the seventies were honest and set out the way to a safe future, one mitigation dam was built, a tiny part of the plan, yet it would appear even it helped. This normal cyclic weather may go a long way into mitigating the eco nuts out of the ears of those who govern. We can only wish those effected are safe and well, and those misguided fools who put humanity last, a mind tormented by the blood on their hands.
It’s unfortunate that so many people have been affected by the floods in Australia but I wonder why, given the history of the area, that flood mitigation measures weren’t taken? My first experience of flooding occurred when I lived in Winnipeg over 40 years ago and it was quite memorable to see how much damage a flood could do. My father passed on this concern with flooding to me and we lived in one of the highest sections of Winnipeg which was unaffected by the flooding.
The solution in Winnipeg, which is essentially all flat, was to build a massive floodway around the city so that floodwaters would travel around the city. This project was worked well as the last Red River floods didn’t affect the city. When one lives in flat, flood prone areas, then digging artificial river channels is the best way to mitigate the effects of floods when they happen. These are massive engineering projects and probably would have the watermelon faction of the population up in arms against them, but they do work. Given a choice between creating a river channel and having ones home destroyed by a flood, I have no hesitation in favoring flood mitigation.
One of the first things that I look at when deciding to live in a city is the history of flooding and other potential natural disasters. Where I live in Kamloops is several hundred feet above the nearest river and I really wonder about people who insist on building their homes right on the bank of the river when the last major flooding in this area would have resulted in all of their homes being underwater.
In Vancouver, the danger is earthquakes and I chose to live in downtown Vancouver which is the most seismically stable area of Vancouver being high up and essentially on a huge chunk of rock. The city of Richmond on the Fraser River is below sea level and all silt so an earthquake would result in massive flooding and possibly destruction of this part of greater Vancouver.
It’s very nice being on the bank of a river but I’d never put a house there as I’ve just seen too much flooding to even consider it. The other danger in Kamloops is fire and in 2003 BC had massive forest fires which destroyed sections of nearby Kelowna as some people liked to live within a forest. I like trees around but keeping brush cleared is essential. If someone likes living in a forest then building ones house out of concrete with either a metal or non-flammable shingled roof should be mandatory. Wildfires are also part of nature and one either clears away brush around houses or makes the houses fireproof.
My heartfelt sympathies are with those struggling with flooding in Australia at this moment and to those coming to terms with the loss of family members and much-loved friends.
Australia, as others have put it so well, is a land of stark contrasts and an incredibly dangerous environment. I have nothing but contempt for the Green idiots who set themselves up as guardians of fragile Nature, as nature is anything but fragile there; as one of my Oz cousins so nicely puts it, “ignore it or get it wrong and nature will bite yer arse off.” The story of Australia is the story of massive droughts followed by massive floods.
But the same story is repeated all over the world – I visited Boscastle in Cornwall weeks before it was devastated by a flash flood a very few years ago. I found the place a bit creepy and wondered why intelligent people would build a settlement inside a steep-sided drain that carries the run-off from a flood plain. I noted that Boscastle has been rebuilt in exactly the same place and style as before; to my knowledge, no serious flood-prevention works have been carried out upstream. The even more recent floods in the UK’s Midlands are similar – everything is being carefully rebuilt in the same manner and in the same place, but minor flood protection which seems to be too little and too late is being carried out there. When will people learn that building on flood plains is seriously stupid?
There has to be a Royal Commission of Enquiry into the Queensland floods and their aftermath. Green stupidity and developers’ and council members’ cupidity have to be exposed for the criminal acts they are.
To those trying to answer my queries, thank you.
My last hydrology learning was some 25 years ago and I am supposedly qualified to actually build dams! but we don’t get to design or build many in the UK!
I assume (rightly or wrongly) that hydrological assessment and design is similar to that in the UK, with unit hydrographs, flood plain and flow analysis, 100 year return period rainfall events and such like. Anyway, on the presumption that the current events are unprecedented (as in period and amount of rainfall), this would mean that the design 100yr event was obviously erroneous. Thats not anyones fault, per se, because if it is a freak or extreme event only designing to grossly inflated factors of safety/capacity would ‘cover’ such events.
My query was really whether or not they could have had less of a flood peak, i.e. with less height/depth (and therefore affecting less land area) but perhaps for longer time if they had released a lot more water from the dam at a (much) earlier stage – and when the rainfall was getting too much, perhaps then, they could have shut the dam and reduced downstream effects? It is all hypothetical from my end obviously, but if I were a resident of the area, I would certainly be wanting to know the actual reasoning behind whatever actions were taken.
It is important to realise that nature (as always) can and will throw a spanner in the works, and no design can fully accommodate such events, but dare I say it – ‘modelling’ the recent rainfall event and a review of the actions of the water management, etc, may throw up a better flood protection plan in hindsight. Of course, this has little or no bearing on the likes of Toowoomba (flash flooding) but may have useful bearing on the affected areas in downtown Brisbane.
All the best to those out there……