I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
That is the second stanza from Dorothea MacKellars famous poem "My Country". It is, quite easily, one of the most known four lines in our country, perhaps second only to the opening lines of "The Man From Snowy River"
The vast majority of Australia has been in the midst of drought for many, many years and on very strict water restrictions.
In March last year, some good rains came.
It was wonderful, and we rejoiced.
In December, it rained some more. The catchments were full. We were delighted!
But this time, the rain didn't stop.
It's been raining in Queensland continuously for about a month. At the moment, there are recordings of 4" per hour.
The parched ground hasn't been able to absorb the rain quickly enough, and the south east of Queensland, an area the size of France and Germany combined, is now under water.
Last night, Toowoomba, a town with no river, was hit with an "inland tsunami"
Photo courtesy of @AussieJoy
(Edited to add at 1:26pm 1/6/2010)
8 people died. Including a woman and her child, who couldn't get out of their car before it was swept away.
In total, 15 people are dead (as at Jan 10), and there are 72 people missing in Queensland.
The floods began in Rockhampton, and have since claimed 22 towns (at last count) and affected approximately 20 thousand people. The damage is reported to be in the AUbillions. 3 hundred roads have been closed, including 9 major highways.
Brisbane (state capital) and surrounding areas have started to be evacuated.
To give you an idea just how catastrophic these floods are, I found a couple of inset maps and then I drew on them*...
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
It really is horrific.
Please pray for our country.
The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;
the LORD is enthroned as King forever.
Psalm 29:10
* Please excuse my spelling of "affected" TWICE... I was having a hard enough time writing with that jolly thing as it was
It sure is nuts! Here before and around Christmas we had some of the worst snow falls that I can remember. Now it's gone back to the "normal" winters though.. my manager is in Australia but I'm not sure where (I know her daughter lives in Sydney), she's supposed to come home this week.
I will pray. I have just heard about this today- one through a friend's Facebook, and now here. They are not covering this on our news at all. I have really good friends in Brisbane, who I will now try to contact. Thank you for posting this!
Thank you, KO. Lord knows, we need every single one. I hope your friends are safe and well.
Praying here. When I see that video I wonder how she dared to stay in that house.
They had no notice, whatsoever. The water just came rushing through... Thankyou for praying.
Thanks for sharing the news. I heard about it last week but never checked the news after that. I subscribed to News Australia's You Tube channel to keep updated. This season doesn't seem like the best over there. I still remember being in tears while reading the news about the disastrous fires 2 years ago.
It's nuts, huh? And that's not all that's going on over here...
The parts of Qld that aren't underwater have bushfires, further south, New South Wales and Victoria are also starting to flood, there are fires over in Perth, Western Australia, and there is a cyclone brewing up north. Where I am.
What is up with the weather?!
I have a number of friends in Australia.. thank you for posting this.. i'll be praying!
Hope it's okay but i'm going to post this link on my blog... it really sums it up well and the community on my blog is people mainly from US, UK and AU... i think your maps really help!
Thankyou so much. And so beautifully written. We appreciate it, thank you.
I'm very worried about your country and will pray for you. You made it very clear with your drawings of the large area that is affected.