Batterings and Crossroads II

First things first: I have heard from my Dad. He, my brother and my brother’s family are all safe and well.

As I said Dad is north of Cairns and was missed by the worst of the cyclone. He has had some large trees that he planted over twenty years ago blown down and other damage in his garden.
Conrad and his family live in Innisfail where many houses were destroyed. Their garden has been destroyed but fortunately their house survived intact.

Now it is Victoria’s turn.
This photo was taken from the Bureau of Meteorology and shows the remains of the storm. Yasi has been downgraded to a tropical low. It is the circular feature in the centre of Oz over the South Australia and Northern Territory border.

The remains of Yasi are about 2,500 kilometres (1,600 miles) from here. It no longer packs deadly winds itself. But it is still such a huge low pressure system that it is pulling in weather from all around the continent.

The huge stream of cloud coming in from the south east (about 5 O’clock) is covering the whole of Victoria.

It isn’t just a wisp of cloud it is a whole stream of dense clouds, much of it made up of Super-Cell Thunderstorms. We had more than our whole month’s average rainfall in just over 18 hours. And more is on the way.

The outcome: flash flooding all across the state and in particular right through Melbourne. Roads are cut everywhere and people have been evacuated from many areas.

We once again are fine (our house is nicely placed on a hill) but things are tough for a lot of other people.

Now to me. I haven’t talked about my personal stuff again. Once again I guess my thoughts have been overtaken by events. So you’ll just have to stay tuned.

Batterings and Crossroads

Poor Queensland (the state of my birth) has been copping another battering. As if the worst floods in 100 years weren’t bad enough Far North Queensland has just been hit by the biggest cyclone to hit Oz since 1919.

To give an idea of how big Cyclone Yasi has been the Brisbane Times has superimposed an image of it against a couple of familiar places in the world.

Yasi in comparison to EuropeAnd America
The only saving grace (and this is a huge one) is the centre of the storm missed major population centres. Places like Cairns and Townsville have a huge cleanup but they don’t have to be rebuilt.
It isn’t all good, smaller centres like Mission Beach, Tully and Cardwell have been pretty much flattened.
But as of this afternoon there were no reported deaths or serious injuries, so miracles do sometimes seem to happen.

Once again there is a personal dimension to this for me. My father lives north of Cairns and one of my brothers has a house at Innisfail which has also been damaged.
I haven’t heard from them since the storm hit and may not for a few days because the power and phones are down in most of the area. Dad is not likely to have suffered any material loss, but Conrad may have.
Remember though before you get too worried on our account “no deaths or serious injuries”.

Actually I was going to talk about something else of a personal nature tonight but I am whacked so it will have to wait till next time.