Cyclone Alfred

[Michi]

Seems like the devastation is at the lower end of predictions, which is good news. Hope it stays that way.

Hopefully Lismore can avoid its third devastating flood in a decade.

It's still bad around here in many places. We had 470 mm (that's 18.5 inches) of rain in the past three days. Quite a few roads are still unusable, lots of people (200,000 households) still without power, most schools closed, lots of debris cleanup still to be done.

While our house got off the hook cheaply, this was a really serious event. Fortunately only one death. As usual, someone decided that the advice "do not drive through flood waters" didn't apply to them. He paid the price.

 

[Nemo]

It's still bad around here in many places. We had 470 mm (that's 18.5 inches) of rain in the past three days. Quite a few roads are still unusable, lots of people (200,000 households) still without power, most schools closed, lots of debris cleanup still to be done.

Yeah, sounds like there is still lots of damage to fix.

I guess I was most worried about massive flooding as it's always a very long and hard recovery from a house being inundated. I'm glad that it hasn't happened so far.

We would have gladly taken 50mm off your hands. Maybe even more. Everything is dry down here. We got some tropical humid overcast weather but barely a mm of rain (I assume this is from the tail of Alfred, since it came from the north).

 

[JayBee]

Got the « flash floods. Prepare to get evacuated / go to higher grounds » text at 3.35am, but turns out Council send it a bit too widely. I am naturally level-headed, so I grabbed a torch light and went to see the creeks around when I received it (in case we needed to go and wake up the neighbors all sound asleep) and there was clearly no risk where we are. Without going to pro actively check where things were at, I don’t think my wife was going back to sleep. They should refine a little bit the text and the system, as it is a fairly cryptic phrasing, does not give you any clear directions (link to the radio did not work!) and is just panic inducing honestly.

Neighboring suburbs got some pretty serious damages as well as other parts of Brisbane, but I feel like people were relatively well prepared (as frustrating as Alfred was on the timing), which allowed the death count to be what it is (except for the one guy who tried to drive through water).

Looks like the water won’t go higher now, let’s see how long it takes for it to go down.

 

[Michi]

Bremer River in Ipswich is expected to peak at 12.35 meters, which is catastrophic.

The rain on Sunday was the highest single-day rainfall recorded in Brisbane since the 1974 flood. Still over 160,000 households without power. Estimates for repair go out as far as 15 March, five days from now

This really is a bad one this time

 

[Nemo]

Bremer River in Ipswich is expected to peak at 12.35 meters, which is catastrophic.

The rain on Sunday was the highest single-day rainfall recorded in Brisbane since the 1974 flood. Still over 160,000 households without power. Estimates for repair go out as far as 15 March, five days from now

This really is a bad one this time

Sorry to hear this.

 

[JASinIL2006]

Glad you guys are safe, but it sounds like you’ll be feeling the effects of the storm for some time. I hope the repairs are completed more quickly than estimated.

 

[Michi]

There are still about 33,000 households without power in southeast Queensland. Supermarkets are mostly empty of bread, milk, meat, veggies, fruit, eggs, toilet paper, etc. Two days ago, the two major chains (Coles and Woolworths, which together have over 80% market share) closed their doors in Brisbane. There was essentially nothing left to buy that people were actually interested in.

Re-stocking is slow because there was a lot of road damage, so truck deliveries were delayed. And a lot of people lost all their fresh and frozen food due to the power outages, who then went to the stores to restock, and the stores can't keep up.

It has been impossible to buy eggs in Brisbane for a week now. At least in my wider area, there are none to be had.

 

[Jovidah]

It's only in those kind of exceptional circumstances that you start to see what a marvelously finely tuned machine our food logistics are. We're so used to it working reliably that we never give it a second thought until it actually stops functioning.

 

[aporigine]

It's only in those kind of exceptional circumstances that you start to see what a marvelously finely tuned machine our food logistics are. We're so used to it working reliably that we never give it a second thought until it actually stops functioning.

I believe it was Alfred Henry Louis who said that we are only nine meals away from anarchy. (It is often misattributed to Lenin.)