Queensland Floods
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I don't know if this does justice to the scale of the disaster, but these interactive before and after images are interesting: http://www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/qld-floods/beforeafter.htm[^]
Peter "Until the invention of the computer, the machine gun was the device that enabled humans to make the most mistakes in the smallest amount of time."
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I don't know if this does justice to the scale of the disaster, but these interactive before and after images are interesting: http://www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/qld-floods/beforeafter.htm[^]
Peter "Until the invention of the computer, the machine gun was the device that enabled humans to make the most mistakes in the smallest amount of time."
Up until now I would never associate the two words "Australia" and "flooding". Has this ever happened before?
Best wishes, Hans
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Up until now I would never associate the two words "Australia" and "flooding". Has this ever happened before?
Best wishes, Hans
Hans Dietrich wrote:
Has this ever happened before?
Yes it has, last time for Brisbane was 1974 after which Wivenhoe dam was built as a part of flood mitigation measures unfortunately it was full due to previous rain falls. Wivenhoe Dam[^] I love a sunburned country A land of sweeping plains Of ragged mountain ranges Of drought and flooding rain I love her far horizons I love her jewel-sea Her beauty and her terror The wide brown land for me From My Country by Dorothea Mackellar
People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs
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Hans Dietrich wrote:
Has this ever happened before?
Yes it has, last time for Brisbane was 1974 after which Wivenhoe dam was built as a part of flood mitigation measures unfortunately it was full due to previous rain falls. Wivenhoe Dam[^] I love a sunburned country A land of sweeping plains Of ragged mountain ranges Of drought and flooding rain I love her far horizons I love her jewel-sea Her beauty and her terror The wide brown land for me From My Country by Dorothea Mackellar
People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs
From the web site: "During a flood situation, Wivenhoe Dam is designed to hold back a further 1.45 million megalitres as well as its normal storage capacity of 1.15 million megalitres. Floods may still occur in the Ipswich and Brisbane areas but they will be rarer in occurrence. Wivenhoe’s flood control facility, together with the existing flood mitigation effect of Somerset Dam, will substantially reduce the heights of relatively small floods. It is anticipated that during a large flood similar in magnitude to that experienced in 1974, by using mitigation facility within Wivenhoe Dam, flood levels will be reduced downstream by an estimated 2 metres." Did the dam actually overflow, or fail in some way?
Best wishes, Hans
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From the web site: "During a flood situation, Wivenhoe Dam is designed to hold back a further 1.45 million megalitres as well as its normal storage capacity of 1.15 million megalitres. Floods may still occur in the Ipswich and Brisbane areas but they will be rarer in occurrence. Wivenhoe’s flood control facility, together with the existing flood mitigation effect of Somerset Dam, will substantially reduce the heights of relatively small floods. It is anticipated that during a large flood similar in magnitude to that experienced in 1974, by using mitigation facility within Wivenhoe Dam, flood levels will be reduced downstream by an estimated 2 metres." Did the dam actually overflow, or fail in some way?
Best wishes, Hans
Hans Dietrich wrote:
Did the dam actually overflow, or fail in some way?
It was full, due to previous rain fall, at 120% capacity so the excess water during the latest down pour had to be released to avoid spill over.
People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs
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Hans Dietrich wrote:
Did the dam actually overflow, or fail in some way?
It was full, due to previous rain fall, at 120% capacity so the excess water during the latest down pour had to be released to avoid spill over.
People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs
Rod Kemp wrote:
It was full, due to previous rain fall, at 120% capacity so the excess water during the latest down pour had to be released to avoid spill over.
Then I don't understand why people in the Brisbane area were caught unprepared. Didn't they know about the water release?
Best wishes, Hans
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Rod Kemp wrote:
It was full, due to previous rain fall, at 120% capacity so the excess water during the latest down pour had to be released to avoid spill over.
Then I don't understand why people in the Brisbane area were caught unprepared. Didn't they know about the water release?
Best wishes, Hans
It wasn't just the water release. Before the rain Wivenhoe was almost empty, due to the 10 year drought we have just been through, so the rain has filled it to the point water had to be released then the rain just kept coming. I did read that the area affected was the size of France and Germany combined so think about the amount of water that had to fall to accomplish that.
People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs
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Rod Kemp wrote:
It was full, due to previous rain fall, at 120% capacity so the excess water during the latest down pour had to be released to avoid spill over.
Then I don't understand why people in the Brisbane area were caught unprepared. Didn't they know about the water release?
Best wishes, Hans
They had a few days warning and saved a lot of stuff. A lot of places went under several metres though, and are now filled with mud. The deaths and destruction was a bit further west where some really heavy rain fell and rivers rose 5-10 metres in an hour. These were the flash floods where people looked out and saw the river rising, made a few phone calls or started packing and the next thing they knew is that they were trapped. Most of these were in places that were not known for flooding, see one brief account here Toowoomba floods a joke no more [^] All this water then went on to contribute to the floods in Brisbane. The dam peaked at 188% and is already back to 120% in case of further rain. Also, quite a few of the tributaries come in below the dam so are not controlled (I think about 1/3 of the catchment feeds downstream).
Peter "Until the invention of the computer, the machine gun was the device that enabled humans to make the most mistakes in the smallest amount of time."