Brisbane CBD evacuated

[Stark]

Oh dear

Eight thousand Brisbane properties could be at risk of flooding tomorrow, while 400 streets may also be affected in some way, according to Brisbane City Council forecasts issued yesterday.

Authorities say Wivenhoe Dam, built partly as a flood mitigation strategy after the 1974 flood, was all that stood in the way of a repeat of the devastating event.

So after decades of drought, the upstream dams are taking 10 million ML a day and water is being released now to try to prevent worse overflows. My office and much of the CBD is being evacuated, the yuppie riverfront suburbs are being evacuated, and many suburbs are warned of flooding tomorrow. Most CBD government departments are already empty.

I, of course, blame Toowoomba.

[LadyTevar]

Take care, Stark. I hope the dam holds

[Stark]

There are a few of them, but I believe one of them is damaged. If they're in the 'tactical dam release' stage, I guess it's pretty bad. My friends in the civil service are being told that the situation is very serious.

[Thanas]

How was this situation ever allowed to get that bad? Did the Australians follow the American model (tm) and not spend the necessary upkeep?

[Chardok]

Yo STRAK - is 10 million milliliters alot?

Oh, I see, you meant to use a REAL measurement, but forgot. I'll let you have some time to edit it so us "normies" can understand it.

Just kidding - so forgive my poor understanding of 'Straylyan geography - but does this put you or JSF or Ando in daynjah?

[Stark]

From what I remember, when one of the dams was found to have a flaw they built another one as well to handle the pressure, but they're filling up so fast and unexpectedly due to the previous years of drought that it's come as a surprise. Recently the Hinze dam had its wall raised, but some sites are reporting the dam system as a whole is expected to reach 200% of capacity, and its never been at 100% before.

I doubt any of the dams will break, but if they do the CBD will probably be underwater. The current floods expected are due to deliberate releases by the dam authority

Wivenhoe Dam

Upstream levels are rising quickly as a result of significant heavy rainfall. The objective for dam operations will be to minimise the impact of urban flooding in areas downstream of the dam.

Releases through five gates have been held at around 236,000 megalitres a day since early Monday night 10 January as a result of outflows into the Brisbane River from the Lockyer Creek and Bremer River.

If further rainfall occurs, dam releases may need to be increased further.

Somerset Dam
Water is being released into Wivenhoe; however the amount discharged can change as conditions change. Levels in Somerset are expected to continue rising.

Areas around Kilcoy are likely to be impacted as a result of the rising dam levels.

Leslie Harrison Dam
Gate releases are underway due to rainfall and inflows.

North Pine Dam
Five gates are open, releasing around 15,000 megalitres a day and will continue until at least Wednesday 12 January.

The local Council is being kept informed regarding Youngs Crossing.

Hinze Dam
A minor release of around 1200 megalitres a day is being made through the emergency gates. There is no public access to the spillway.

'Grid Twelve' is the water system for SEQ.
Storage Full Supply Capacity (ML)* Current Capacity (ML) % Full Latest Observation
Grid Twelve 2,070,504 3,196,381 100.0 11/01/2011 09:05AM

Atkinson Dam 30,488 30,488 100.0 11/01/2011 08:07AM Dam is spilling
Baroon Pocket Dam 61,000 61,000 100.0 11/01/2011 08:59AM Dam is spilling
Bill Gunn Dam 6,947 6,947 100.0 11/01/2011 08:14AM Dam is spilling
Borumba Dam 45,952 45,952 100.0 11/01/2011 06:30AM Dam is spilling
Bromelton Dam 8,210 8,021 97.7 11/01/2011 08:59AM
Cedar Pocket Dam 730 730 100.0 11/01/2011 07:53AM Dam is spilling
Clarendon Dam 4,276 16,842 69.4 11/01/2011 08:44AM
Cooloolabin Dam 13,800 13,820 100.0 11/01/2011 08:06AM Dam is spilling
Enoggera Dam 4,567 4,567 100.0 11/01/2011 09:01AM Dam is spilling
Ewen Maddock Dam 16,587 16,587 100.0 11/01/2011 08:53AM Dam is spilling
Gold Creek Dam 801 801 100.0 11/01/2011 08:57AM Dam is spilling
Hinze Dam 161,073 161,073 100.0 11/01/2011 07:00AM Dam is spilling
Lake Kurwongbah 14,370 14,370 100.0 11/01/2011 08:34AM Dam is spilling
Lake Macdonald 8,018 8,018 100.0 11/01/2011 07:00AM Dam is spilling
Lake Manchester 26,217 26,217 100.0 11/01/2011 08:59AM Dam is spilling
Leslie Harrison Dam 24,868 24,062 96.8 11/01/2011 09:00AM Releases from storage.
Little Nerang Dam 6,705 6,705 100.0 11/01/2011 09:05AM Dam is spilling
Maroon Dam 44,319 44,319 100.0 11/01/2011 09:00AM Dam is spilling
Moogerah Dam 83,765 83,765 100.0 11/01/2011 09:01AM Dam is spilling
North Pine Dam 214,302 225,607 100.0 11/01/2011 09:00AM Releases from storage.
Somerset Dam 379,849 610,740 100.0 11/01/2011 08:00AM Releases from storage.
Wappa Dam 4,694 4,694 100.0 07/01/2011 13:25PM
Wivenhoe Dam 1,165,238 2,049,705 100.0 11/01/2011 09:00AM Releases from storage.

[atg]

Apparently Brisbane River has broken its banks and the CBD is starting to flood. Friends of mine are being evacuated. Hope all you guys that live up there are OK.

EDIT: This site is being updated with news fairly regularly.

[atg]

Crap. Seems Caboolture got the evac order too late and the roads out are cut off. A friend of mine and many others are trapped there

[Stark]

I was only just able to talk Sherry into leaving before transport was cut off. So now we're MAKING SAUSAGES.

[Broomstick]

From what I remember, when one of the dams was found to have a flaw they built another one as well to handle the pressure, but they're filling up so fast and unexpectedly due to the previous years of drought that it's come as a surprise. Recently the Hinze dam had its wall raised, but some sites are reporting the dam system as a whole is expected to reach 200% of capacity, and its never been at 100% before.

So... it's not a matter of the infrastructure maintenance being neglected, it's that the system is being called upon to deal with twice the water it was designed for, correct?

US media is reporting 8 dead and 72 missing, but with the usual lack of geographical precision, just "Brisbane", which I take to mean the general area and not just the central city itself. Although it's taking a back seat to the recent mass shooting in Arizona. I expect as that fades, and if the situation in Brisbane worsens, it will become headlines here.

Stay safe, everyone - don't underestimate the threat flooding can pose.

[weemadando]

Im fine at the other end of the continent. Though when I get back to work after this leave its going to be crazy. Sounds like there's whole of org overtime seven days a week just trying to keep up with the emergency claims, let alone cover for the staff who are on the emergency response teams.

[weemadando]

US media is reporting 8 dead and 72 missing, but with the usual lack of geographical precision, just "Brisbane", which I take to mean the general area and not just the central city itself.

Actually neatly the whole of QLD is underwater - last I saw it was as if France Germany and the low countries were all COMPLETELY flooded with plenty of flood still to.spate.

Stay safe, everyone - don't underestimate the threat flooding can pose.

[/quote]

Too late, already have been plenty of idiots trying to kill (and some succeeding) their families and emergency personnel by driving into goddamn flood water or refusing to evacuate.

[loomer]

Fortunately Lismore has so far remained unflooded, so I'm doing okay. There's a potential for a serious flood here too, though, because all we have is a shitty levy.

[thejester]

That's crazy shit in Brisbane. Watching it at work, in the space of four hours it went from 'Brisbane under threat' to 'holy shit whilst doing this two minute report from the Brisbane CBD the water has risen several inches and is now covering my feet'. The footage from Towoomba is equally insane. You expect water to be moving that fast in the middle of the river, not down the main street of a town sitting on top of a mountain.

Hopefully the death toll doesn't dramatically increase and it doesn't peak as high as expected. Interesting to note that today there were severe weather/flash flooding warnings current for most of Victoria east of the range/Port Phillip and the storm system that is drenching SE Queensland is moving into northern NSW; this on top of the massive amounts of water already dumped into the Murray-Darling system over the last few months. Not sure it's an exaggeration to say you could probably travel the majority of the continent's north-south axis in flooded areas.

And Perth's on fire. Love a sunburnt country.

[Stark]

Yeah, there were warnings in the morning, but my lunchtime it was GOVT FLEES CITY and communcation failures and stuff. It's expected the city will be dead for a few days at least. Plenty of warning and tactical dam use has certainly mitigated what would otherwise have been a serious disaster.

[weemadando]

Yeah. It's been pretty bad thus far. At least we probably aren't going to get major fires here this year. WA is having fun though, massive floods in some parts, massive bushfires in others. Serves them right for being so damn big.

[xt828]

I spent 3 and a half hours waiting in a car queue today to get sandbags at the Newmarket SES for my old man's place at Rosalie.

The prediction is that the high tide will be higher than that of the 1974 floods, which was a 5.45m beast.

This Facebook page is for photos of what's going on.

It's been pretty damn rough elsewhere in the state, too - I have an Aunt living outside Toowoomba who we haven't been able to contact, but given where she lives it's most likely that she's just lost the phone line etc.

[hongi]

This is ridiculous. A friend of mine went to visit some people near the QLD-NSW border and reported that it rained every day all the time for 3 straight weeks.

[cosmicalstorm]

Holy shit it was fast.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=19f_1294721633

[Winston Blake]

How was this situation ever allowed to get that bad? Did the Australians follow the American model (tm) and not spend the necessary upkeep?

No, I'd say it's more a case of the Australian climate interpreting the presence of humans as an infection and acting to cure it.

One of the paradoxes of the Australian climate is that we are always in a drought, yet areas are regularly devastated by floods from heavy rain... rain which is curiously absent when the bushfires decide to create a few new post-nuke Hiroshima-like regions.

This Queensland flood disaster has been called an 'inland tsunami', with the city of Toowoomba damn near wiped out (as Stark alluded to in the OP). There have been comments in online news stories that the affected areas look like a nuke hit them.

About half of the state of Queensland has been declared a disaster zone. For people not familiar with the size of Australian states, that disaster zone is bigger than France and Germany combined. Or bigger than Texas and New Mexico combined. Apparently the declared disaster zone will soon be increased in size into a so-called 'mega-disaster zone'.

Fortunately I'm not at risk of flooding, but the suburb next door (West End) is being evacuated. There were traffic jams and panic buying yesterday, with many businesses in the CBD being sandbagged. 30 suburbs are on 'high alert', 2 are being evacuated, and the Brisbane River has broken it banks in multiple places. That was yesterday - not sure what's going on now since I don't have a TV - although the peak is expected tomorrow sometime, so it will get worse before it gets better. Australia only has 8 capital cities, so for one to get busted like this is news.

Yesterday my university, UQ, cancelled all classes and told all staff they don't have to come in for a few days. Some of the banks are apparently subsiding at my campus, and one campus is completely cut off by floodwaters. A burst pipe killed my water supply for a little over a day, but now my only issues are a small leak in the roof and an apparent influx of spiders. Better than some areas though - I have read that the floodwaters have flushed huge numbers of snakes into populated areas, and various mosquito-borne epidemics are expected in the aftermath. Further, vast amounts of topsoil have been washed away, which is going cause real economic problems.

So yeah - Australia interprets the presence of humans as an infection and acts to cure it. I decided to work from home today - so of course now the rain stopped and the sun is out.

[xt828]

I've spent all morning in Rosalie helping my old man move all his stuff to high ground - his ground floor is pretty much guaranteed to get drowned at high tide, and the garage of the guy across the road had about 80cm of water in it (he's on the river side of the street, and the garage is below road level). There were a few people going from house to house offering help, which was nice to see, but masses of rubberneckers wandering around looking at the flooded shops down the road.

I didn't realise it yesterday, because my travels didn't take me near any flooded areas, but there is a lot of water around. At Auchenflower and Milton there are streets totally underwater that surface only meters before the main drag. In other places - around Indooroopilly and west of that, for example - there are large stretches of road with the water just off to the side, waiting for high tide to spill over. The only saving grace is that Brisbane is built on quite hilly terrain, so there are usually back roads to take to get around blockages.

[PainRack]

What other disaster measures are being put in place?

[Stark]

Disaster's over dude, you missed it. The rain out west has stopped and once they get the power back on the city will probably be back to normal.

[Broomstick]

Normal except for the clean. That will take awhile and be messy. And expensive.

[weemadando]

Normal except for the clean. That will take awhile and be messy. And expensive.

Well, at least there's plenty of water to hose everything down with now.

I wonder how many people just realised what the old Queenslander house design was actually good for? In addition to looking great and being a nice place to sit and watch the slaves cut sugar cane...