2011 Brisbane Floods

As you've probably seen on the news, Brisbane is finally flooding. Northern Queensland has been dealing with floods for the past couple of weeks and hundreds of thousands of people have been affected. Southeast Queensland, where Brisbane is, started flooding last night. For all the serious stuff, there is plenty to read about here.

Naturally, this disaster has had horrible consequences for thousands of people and everyone is extremely sympathetic. Amidst all the sympathy and worry, there has also been some sort of excitement in the air. By mid morning, many offices were closing and sending staff home. So, it was peak hour, in the mid morning. After lunch, my brother and I went out for a walk.

We're lucky to be living on a hill but the road at the bottom was flooded and the park is now a lake. Actually, the parks are part of the water sensitive urban and designed to act as a catchment during floods.





There were lots of other people walking around with their raincoats, umbrellas and cameras. Everyone just wanted to capture the event for their own photo albums. The atmosphere was sort of serious but not somber. People were wandering around, almost aimlessly, just observing everything around them. Nobody was in a rush and it didn't look like anybody had anywhere else to be. In a strange way, it was quite peaceful.





After walking around for an hour, I went home to get Aaron so that he could see what it was all about. After all, this is going to be the flood that every one talks about for years to come.



This is a photo we took at around 5pm. As you can see, we could still turn right at the time. At 9pm, we excitedly went out to check on the water again and the road was completely underwater and there was a rescue boat sitting where the police car is in the photo.



Its raining as I type it and even though its expected to ease tomorrow, the peak of water from the dams is expected to reach Brisbane on Thursday. We've stocked up on food and movies. Hopefully, there won't be any power outages here...