Living just down the road from the main news item I thought I should visit Rockhampton. So I did this afternoon. I drove in from Yeppoon and it was not until I crossed the river to the south that I could see flooding and preparations in anticipation of more flooding.
The mighty Fitzroy was spectacular and noisy! There was plenty of fresh food and milk in Woolworths, just the noodles running a bit low – Oh and no food in the delicatessen section. Following are some of the photographs: all taken this afternoon, January 3, 2011 in Rockhampton. Click on each image for a larger view.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jennifer thanks for sharing that and the photos are fabulous
What a shame Tony didn’t know you were coming – I’m sure he would have been delighted
to show you around the dry areas
I would have liked to get in touch with Tony to let him know the coverage his articles are getting but I don’t know how
The floods are being well covered from what I’ve seen of the evening news
but I wish the appeal was being conducted by a charity Red Cross or Salvation Army;
I e mailed the Red Cross but haven’t had a reply
but looks like the emergency services are doing what they can
got any more photos by the way
and thanks for your coverage
Good onya Jen,
Those empty shelves are more stark reality than all that water going to waste. I suppose Keppel Bay is a bit muddy.
BTW, Varied Trillers that are plentiful around Emu Park come to visit us this time every year and I found two this morning.
Hi Val,
Tony and I have been in touch.
Email me your contact details, so I can on-forward to him. I’m sure he would be keen to touch base with you.
Hey Spangled,
The sea is very brown. It was also muddy this time last year. Then was a beautiful blue during the dry season.
http://papundits.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/the-rockhampton-flood-crisis-the-waiting-game/
Here in Rockhampton, it’s now a matter of waiting, waiting, waiting.
Hi Jen; thanks for the offer to put me in touch with Tony but don’t want to bother him at the moment; what is important to me is him knowing that people are reading his reports from Rocky and now you’ve been in touch I’m sure he’ll know the support your blog is giving him and the flood victims too;
I get PA Pundits daily so I’ve known of Tony’s excellent writings for some time
But thanks for the offer of putting me in touch with him
Jen I noticed Tony commented in your post concerning him yesterday and I missed saying hi to him; I was engrossed with other things; so if he reads this
to Tony “Thanks for your reports from Rocky and my sympathy to you and all the other flood victims; from what I’ve seen on the news everyone affected is epitomising the true Aussie spirit – helping mates and strangers and showing true resilience and amazingly that dry humour that we Aussies expect and love from one another so my admiration goes to all of you for that as well”.
Val,
thanks for the comments, and Jennifer, thank you again for linking in to the Post at our home site.
I regularly read at Jeniffer’s site, and I noticed only recently that she only lives ‘down the road’ from where we are now living, so to speak. As much as you read, there’s still things you don’t really notice.
We are on the North side, well away from the major areas of inundation, well, 4 Km anyway.
We are barely 2 KM from the Barrage, and I wanted to find all the information I could about that, because that was really interesting.
I checked out the local council documents (pdf) with respect to the effects of inundation at certain river heights and even at 9.5 metres we are still around half a Km away from any water, and that’s barely inches at the very edges of the water, so we will be safe no matter what.
What I wanted to do was look at some of the other aspects and not concentrate as much on the traumatic aspect, which we can all leave to the media, as they seem best at doing.
I was surprised how close that Riverslea Crossing point was to Rocky, ‘as the crow flies’, and yet tracing the river back with Google Earth showed that the Fitzroy itself was indeed quite long, hence the time taken for the maximum peak to arrive here in the City, and why it will remain high after that peak point and time.
On a semi mercenary point, I am surprised how large the traffic at my home site really is with respect to these Posts I am making.
As I said, right now it’s just a matter of waiting.
We’re well stocked here, but gee, how can you plan for being cut off for 14 days or more.
I am noticing the major Supermarkets are sourcing the necessities, milk, bread, etc locally, so they don’t seem to be as empty as I expected. Fruit and veg are a bit scarce.
I’m going to try and get some more images, but the last thing needed now is rubbernecks with cameras getting in the way.
Again, thanks for the comments.
Tony.
If it keeps on rainin’ levee’s goin’ to break. If it keeps on rainin’ levee’s goin’ to break.
If the levee breaks I’ll have no place to stay.
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan. Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan.
It’s got what it takes to make a mountainman leave his home.
Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well.
Don’t it make you feel bad,
when you’re tryin’ to find your way home,
you don’t know which way to go?
If you’re goin’ down South,
there ain’t no work to do.
If you’re goin’ North,
there’s Chicago…
Cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good. Cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good.
When the levee breaks, mama you got to move.
All last night sat on the levee and moaned. All last night I sat on the levee and moaned.
Thinkin’ ’bout my baby and my happy home.
oh, well, oh, well, oh, well.
Goin’, Goin’ to Chicago… Goin’ to Chicago… Sorry but I can’t take you…
Goin’ down… Goin’ down now… Goin’ down…
“When the levee breaks” performed by Led Zep
And, incidentally, written by Joe McCoy and Lizzie Douglas, (Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie) in 1929, after the 1927 Great Flood in Mississippi.
A couple things I find interesting about the song.
First, apparently extreme weather happened somehow before the invention of co2 climate change.
Second, Chicago is presented as a sort of doom. Something terrible that happens to people.
And it still is to this day.
Jen, I’m interested in the fact that you could get into Rocky. I thought they were cut off. Why are the shelves devoid of some types of food if you could get in? (Sorry if the answers are obvious and I’ve missed something!)
Thanks for the pics and the post…(and the comments from the rest of you!)
Cheers,
Janet
One thing I noticed in Australia is that the land tends to be very flat over wide expanses.
That means that such areas, when they receive rain, quickly get covered with water. Hence enormous flood-plains.
I’m puzzled however that even people who live in or near such areas often say that they are x kilometres from the floods, when in essence, they may be only a few metres (vertically) from being flooded.
Though I’m not a Hydrological Engineer, I appreciate that the sources of flooding may be (at least) 3-fold:
1. direct precipitation
2. drainage flow from rain areas
3. wind-driven
In an area that’s hundreds of time larger than the Netherlands (and other low-lying, “flat” parts of Europe) one cannot apply identical means to manage flooding. But one can adapt technologies to ensure that essential infrastructure are protected against at least 50-year flooding.
e.g. a system of roads, railways, pipelines, power transmission lines built on “dykes” and weirs, in combination with enhanced drainage channels and prioritised flood-spill plains.
Unfortunately, there’s going to much “environmental” backlash against such measures to protect the lives and livelihoods of people living in the area, and those who rely on those same people and what they produce.
Instead, funds that could be used for such will be splurged on building more politically-advantageous white elephants like the NBN and desalination plants.
Hi Janet
I recently moved to the Capricorn Coast and now live about 40 kilometres to the east of Rockhampton. The Rocky-Yeppoon road is open, as is the road north to Mackay. It is the road to the south, also rail and airport that have gone under.
We are still getting the daily newspapers here – apparently flown to Mackay and then trucked south.
And it is also possible to get to Gladstone – as the ferry that normally takes tourists to Keppel Island is now operating as a ferry between Rosslyn Bay and Gladstone – so Rocky residents can drive to the sea and catch a boat south to Gladstone and then get a plane out from there.
PS Janet, don’t believe too much of what is said and written by the mainstream media. while i feel for those who have been flooded, in reality there are 27,000 homes in Rocky and less than 2 percent have been flooded… all of the newer suburbs are high and dry