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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 6, 2022 15:00:20 GMT
Well, somebody has to say something sooner or later or the forum will collapse from lack of use.
My thoughts are not very exciting but I have recently spent a lot of time watching the live broadcasts of the meetings of the special session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. These have, obviously, been about the crisis in Ukraine. Leaving aside all the more important matters, something I noticed was the number of delegates who pronounced “sovereignty” as sovRIN-ity. So many did so that I began to doubt my own version. Some of these speakers were from the South Pacific region but I didn’t notice whether all of them were from there or from any other particular part of the world. I wonder whether contributors to this forum have any thoughts on this?
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Post by Twoddle on Mar 6, 2022 18:49:05 GMT
Well, somebody has to say something sooner or later or the forum will collapse from lack of use.
My thoughts are not very exciting but I have recently spent a lot of time watching the live broadcasts of the meetings of the special session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. These have, obviously, been about the crisis in Ukraine. Leaving aside all the more important matters, something I noticed was the number of delegates who pronounced “sovereignty” as sovRIN-ity. So many did so that I began to doubt my own version. Some of these speakers were from the South Pacific region but I didn’t notice whether all of them were from there or from any other particular part of the world. I wonder whether contributors to this forum have any thoughts on this? I wonder what the atherletes and secertaries of those sovrin countries think about the nucular problem and medeeval archology. There's a lot of it about!
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 6, 2022 22:10:42 GMT
Hello again, fellow word nerds! Many thanks to those who sent messages and good wishes during my region's floods. Everything’s going mouldy but there are now some improvements: I awoke this morning to the first internet and phone services in a week. Did I enjoy the enforced digital detox? Nope! I didn’t really do a detox because I spent a lot of time editing a 152,000-word manuscript for a returning client. Probably saved my sanity! The sun might not have been shining but I did make hay nonetheless. It’s certainly a relief to get back online so that I can read my forums / fora – and do some banking. All the ATMs and EFTPOS machines were out of action, so with no cash (i.e. ‘real’ money, as though the stuff is real at all!) it was impossible to buy food. The return of online banking was perfectly timed, as I ran out of food last night and have only today’s breakfast left in the pantry. I’m off to town shortly to get supplies – but instead of my usual 14 km drive it will be more like a 40 km trip because of all the broken-up roads, washed-out causeways and bridges, and many landslips. Even my local country store, usually 4 km away, is now a 20 km trip thanks to a landslide and collapsed road. Complaining? No. No point. We just pick up our skirts, dust ourselves off, and carry on (and drink tea, of course). Life could be worse: at least I'm not in Ukraine. Regards from a sodden and mouldering DownUnder!
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 7, 2022 4:42:50 GMT
I finally managed to get to town today for some shopping (completely out of food after this morning's breakfast). There were numerous road hazards along the way, of which I'll post a representative few. I'm sure there are more dramatic ones available in the news media. Here's a bridge I normally use – still crossable. Distance from road surface to current water level is about 20 metres (it's usually 25–30). And another. This one's a goner!
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 7, 2022 4:49:12 GMT
This is the landslip blocking my road to the local village store. Instead of a 4 km drive it's now closer to 24 km. The road is about to slide down the hill – much as happened a decade ago. Here's one of numerous cracks in the road near that landslip – with my size 9 slipper. (Note my 'perfect' Anglo toes! lol)
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 7, 2022 9:53:12 GMT
You have obviously had a tough time, VV.
I was slightly aware of the problems because my son and his family live in Brisbane and they had told me but the news here has been almost entirely taken up by the situation in Ukraine and I don’t think it has even been mentioned on the BBC. Of course, you could always do without breakfast as do I (as I do).
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 7, 2022 11:18:30 GMT
You have obviously had a tough time, VV.
I was slightly aware of the problems because my son and his family live in Brisbane and they had told me but the news here has been almost entirely taken up by the situation in Ukraine and I don’t think it has even been mentioned on the BBC. Of course, you could always do without breakfast as do I (as I do).
I've had it relatively easy, LJH, compared to many here. I didn't need to be evacuated; I didn't need a helicopter food drop (though came close); none of my things was damaged; my house dried out fairly easily; my car wasn't washed down a waterway; I didn't drown; I didn't lose electricity. And I didn't have to smash my way through a ceiling to find refuge in or on my roof to await rescue. As for tough times: I just thank the gods that I'm not in Ukraine. I hope your son and his family didn't suffer losses from the flood. In Brisbane, some friends of mine lost valuable car collections (about $15M worth of classic Mercedes all in one workshop).
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 7, 2022 12:06:38 GMT
I have just discovered that I can listen to the news on ABC Radio Brisbane online. Because my family live in Brisbane, I have been doing so this morning. I didn’t realise that the flooding situation in many parts of eastern Australia is still very serious. They were still warning people in one area to evacuate their houses because they would be unable to promise to rescue people in the forecasted floods. Fingers crossed for everybody in the affected areas. But my family is fine, thank you.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 7, 2022 20:41:14 GMT
[...] my family is fine, thank you. I'm pleased for them and for you, LJH. We can't afford flood complacency. March–May is my region's (and a lot of the whole east coast's) traditional, major flood season, and it's far from rare that we have two floods in rapid succession. Example: In 1989 we had an April Fools' Day flood (moderate heights) followed five weeks later by a Mothers' Day flood (major). For my home town (Lismore NSW) the only month that the place has never flooded (in whitefella history) is August, so one is always aware of the possibilities. We old-time locals know the drill, but it's the newcomers (who've been taking over and pushing us out for some years now) who get caught. They buy in silly locations, not having done their due diligence on flooding history, and make no preparations for the inevitable deluges. (Since the '60s it's been impossible to insure against floods in the town; surely that should tell buyers something.) This most recent flood, however, even caught some longtime residents: it was the biggest (in river height and flooding extent) and fastest rising since 1880. The levee wall, designed to keep a 1-in-100-year flood out of the CBD, was over-topped by more than two metres, which let water reach the 14-foot ceilings in downtown shops. Even some two-storey houses got wet ceilings. Parts of the town that had never previously flooded were inundated. The local river, the Wilsons, has two catchments, so when the floodwaters rush down the tributaries and meet in Lismore, the rise in water levels tends to be very rapid. Farther downstream, the Wilsons empties into the larger Richmond, so the low-lying land from there to the ocean become one enormous lake, and whole towns have, both before now and in this flood, been annihilated. Similarly, Brisbane copped it in an unprecedented way. That city is built around a large, winding river with an enormous catchment. PS: According to local Indigenous history, Lismore had never seen major flooding until whitey came along and chopped down all the dense forests – initially for the lovely timber (teak, cedar, rosewood) and then for dairy farming. Trees absorb a lot of water and keep the soil from saturation. The farmers' attitude toward trees was "You only need one shade tree per acre". Whitepella pugger 'im up pigtime (local pidgin).
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Post by Twoddle on Mar 8, 2022 18:38:13 GMT
I watch six different types of news on TV - four of them 24-hour news - and I read two news apps. Not one of them brought the floods in Australia to my attention and it wasn't until Verbivore posted to this forum that I was aware of their occurrence, let alone their severity. I know the World's attention is focussed on Hitler's Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but not even to have mentioned such a disaster in Australia is a disgrace!
I'm sorry to learn of it, Verbivore, and I hope that things are returning to some form of normality now.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 11, 2022 4:35:07 GMT
I watch six different types of news on TV - four of them 24-hour news - and I read two news apps. Not one of them brought the floods in Australia to my attention and it wasn't until Verbivore posted to this forum that I was aware of their occurrence, let alone their severity. I know the World's attention is focussed on Hitler's Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but not even to have mentioned such a disaster in Australia is a disgrace! I'm sorry to learn of it, Verbivore, and I hope that things are returning to some form of normality now. Thanks, Twod. Even though we're used to annual inundations here, this was the whopper of all time: 14.3 m – 2.2 metres higher (at the river gauge) than any previously recorded. Here's a video by a former colleague of mine. It shows Lismore and nearby settlements during and after the peak. vimeo.com/686603083?embedded=true&source=video_title&owner=4591532All I've 'suffered' is some minor inconvenience (access via roads etc.) and a bit of mould (clove oil and vinegar to the rescue!). All the various parts of Lismore I've lived in previously copped the full flood this time. Glad I moved out some 15 years ago. PS: Latest news: The number of destroyed houses is now estimated at 5,000+. We already had a housing crisis courtesy of Airbnb and Stayz hogging more than 50% of local houses, so the situation for those displaced by the floods, as well as the previously housing-stressed, is now dire. So glad I'm leaving the region soon.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 14, 2022 7:57:41 GMT
Today, for the first time since the flood of two weeks ago, I visited my old hometown, Lismore.
In my childhood and youth I was accustomed to seeing the place flood and dealing with its aftermath.
This time: different! So very different!
The high-water marks were way beyond anything previous: quite a few city blocks farther out and up than ever. The CBD had never seen more than 3–4 metres of water in the shops; this time it reached, even went beyond, the ceilings, and those are 6–7 metres high. Even multi-storey buildings had a metre or more of water on their second floors!
The piles of sodden and ruined stock, fittings, furnishings, and personal effects lined the streets four metres high and about as wide, the whole length of most streets.
In one premises I found four classic Mercedes that had once been mine. The chap I'd sold them to a few years ago had temporarily stored them in a former Toyota dealership rather too close to the river, and he was out of town when the rains came. The cars were ruined: they'd floated up to the building's roof, but even that was inundated, and the cars, now resting on the ground in disarray (on their roofs, their sides, one on its end up against a wall) are completely ruined.
Places never before flooded included the city hall, the fire station, ambulance station, police station, art gallery (it lost all its collections), the library, the Catholic Church (which is on a considerable rise above the level of the CBD), several other churches, five of the seven schools – including my alma mater, which has usually been the flood refuge for people. The school was so badly affected that it's to be demolished. Even the newer (built mid-1970s) shopping mall a kilometre from the old CBD, which has never before flooded, had two+ metres of water in it and there's talk of complete demolition there, too. Every shop and business is boarded up because the glass was all broken and the place looks like a Spielberg disaster set.
Even the three main bridges – never before over-topped, still had debris hanging from their railings.
5,000+ houses (about one-third of the total) are ruined. Many of them even floated off their foundations and moved a street or more. One I drove past had cracked in half because its foundations had moved!
Every one of the five past addresses I've had in the town was flooded.
The army was everywhere helping with the clean-up, and multiple food vans were feeding the volunteer workers.
There is already talk of repairing and rebuilding in the same location!
Any notion of doing that is a fool's errand: it's time to move the entirety of the town's flood-plain structures – houses, businesses, and services – up into the surrounding hills, of which there are many. It's already near-impossible to get insurance against flood in Lismore, and this event will probably prevent any further coverage for flood-induced loss.
The place looks terribly sad – so much so that I couldn't bring myself to photograph it – to do so would have felt disrespectful of people and their losses. I'll leave that to the newshounds.
The flood levee (which many of us decried as a lemon when it was built 15 years ago) along the river's edge was designed to hold back a 1-in-100-year flood; this has been declared a 1-in-1,000-year event. Unfortunately, it's unlikely to improve with climate change and global heating.
The federal government has now declared the event a major national disaster / emergency – in fact the greatest in the nation's history.
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Post by Dave Miller on Mar 14, 2022 11:44:52 GMT
Gosh, Vv, that really does tell us the extent of the disaster (one which, as Twod said, we here know nothing about).
What is “CBD”, please?
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 14, 2022 12:42:59 GMT
CBD is central business district.
The flood devastation in south-east Australia is terrible for all those involved. I don’t think it has been mentioned at all on the BBC, the news being dominated by the refugee crisis in Ukraine. We get very little other international news and, indeed, very little analysis of the political or military situation in Ukraine. Corvid has been almost forgotten, there is almost nothing about Yemen, about Afghanistan nor about anything else. Mind you, I have recently been listening to news broadcasts from Ghana, Nigeria and Jamaica and there is nothing much on any of those about Ukraine. Indeed I have listened to ABC Radio Brisbane and, even there, the news spends very little time on Ukraine. It is sad that we all seem to be concerned with local affairs.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 14, 2022 22:51:24 GMT
Gosh, Vv, that really does tell us the extent of the disaster (one which, as Twod said, we here know nothing about). What is “CBD”, please? Dave: As well as Central Business District, CBD also stands for Cannabidiol. Lismore is the major commerce and industry centre of the NSW Northern Rivers, but far more than that town were ruined in these floods: four towns downriver were completely over-topped, and many villages, towns, and other settlements upstream were also ruined – many by landslides. Here be a representative – though far from exhaustive – few. Woodburn (downstream) Coraki (downstream) Ballina (downstream – river mouth) Wilsons Creek (upstream) Mullumbimby – my primary shopping and former workplace town (upstream) Murwillumbah (next catchment north) And there was Brisbane, just 200 km north.
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