da Scriffles

This was Moreton Bay, off Brisbane,  just a week ago. 

This picture sums up all we believe about the Sunshine State, but this was an aberration in Queensland's holiday weather this year. 

I've been curious to see the totals for rainfall, so I've gone and collected them and put them up here.

The rain started falling in March, even before the 2009/2010 El Nino event was declared dead in May (and La Nina took hold in winter) .

The Bureau of Meteorology climate report for 2010 says last year was our wettest year in 20 years - by the end of December 1109.7mm of rain had filled empty catchments.

But it continues to fall ... so before Christmas brimming water tables, rivers, creeks and dams spilled into provincial towns leaving thousands of people homeless.

Now, finally the waters have inundated the Brisbane River pushing it into the heart of Queensland's capital city.

Unbelievably, flash floods gushed through the mountain town of Toowoomba which sits high on the Great Dividing Range.

This amateur footage came through just after 5pm on the ABC yesterday. 

Today,  media outlets buzzed with crowd-sourced details, video and photos, as well as stuff off Twitter and Facebook.

ABC News was the only broadcaster to pick up the Queensland Police Service's Facebook stream of Premier Anna Bligh's first disaster update of the day this morning - it was strange to see a Facebook page on the television - viva la revolution! 

By the afternoon, they had dubbed the Toowoomba event (123mm rain today) an inland Tsunami - 59 people missing, nine people dead, so far.

Luckily, BOMA predicts sunshine by Saturday for Toowoomba.

Moreton recorded 614mm this week at Peachester -  the state's highest rainfall this week. 

Last year's Brisbane's total rainfall was a 20-year high.

(BOMA) ( Updated: First post had the wrong table for Brisbane's total )

So let's hope that this week marks the end of this cycle. Here's the year 2010 figures:

As for those of us who are still safe, it feels petty to complain about the soggy yards and patios and unruly gardens and muddy dogs and slippery roads and potholes. 

I did go to Bunnings to get sand to sandbag the back patio to stop the invasion of gathering puddles and streaming rivulets. Bunnings sold out of hessian bags ($15 a pack) and was moving 20kg bags of sand by the half dozen - likewise with bags of pool salt. People had trolley-fulls of pool salt. Lucky that's all they were worried about - hey?

I bought a hessian bag a week ago - just in case - cut it in half and sewed it up with an antique rusty needle my grandma brought with her from China. Never really had need to use a 13cm industrial needle before - I don't think they sewed sandbags with it, they sewed eiderdowns stuffed with camel hair to keep warm in sub-zero temperatures. Bought my digital radio which runs on batteries a few months back - along with candles and matches. They're turning electricity off in flood affected areas. And then there's the lightning during the storms. Looking forward to the dry season.

 

Gerry Harvey really didn't have much reason to party at the party at the Tedder Avenue flood appeal concert last Friday - Harvey Norman has taken a big hit in the floods also with about a dozen stores flooded, including Toowoomba, Ipswich, Fortitude Valley.

Still Harvey Norman and Myer kicked $750,000 into the concert fund-raiser kitty for the Premier's Flood Appeal.

I've discovered that the Harvey Norman claims department has processed more than 11,000 claims since Friday.

Makes me wonder how Harvey Norman will cope with the double whammy of recovering and meeting community demand.

Before the floods, Gerry Harvey was kicking up dirt about off-shore online shopping outlets stealing domestic retail business - which was suffering significantly, he said.

Do you think flood victims will do their shopping online to replace their damaged goods now - because there are bound to be way more than 11,000 customers who don't have warranties to claim on Harvey Norman isn't there?

 

 

The assignment: sell Easter holidays in Queensland.  

QTIC boss Daniel Gschwind turns to Facebook and Twitter to save Queensland's tourism industry from an onslaught of bad international publicity.

Daniel Gschwind's (@ThatTourismGuy) people have rung around 600 Queensland tourism businesses which all report a downturn of between 20 and 100 percent.

So the QTIC have created a "proof of life" campaign on Facebook with a page called Take a Queensland Holiday

The sun is shining in Brisbane's Scenic Rim, Fraser Island, the Whitsundays, the Gold Coast, Mackay, the Great Barrier Reef and other destinations but rooms, cottages, swimming pools, boats, planes and bars are empty. 

Small businesses which survived a lean Christmas off their savings from fat years now battle against all the international publicity of the Queensland floods. 

(Picture: Today's weather)

"The impression that all this publicity gives is that 75 percent of Queensland is flooded so what are overseas visitors to make of this?" Mr Gschwind said.

"It's very consistent response around the state. Very few operators have taken any damage, there are some, but all of them report cancellations and a lack of business."

Scenic Rim tourism operator, the owner of Lilydale Host Farm Pam Hardgrave, rang around her region and found businesses which normally take thousands of dollars a month took only $100 to $200 over Christmas.

Bookings are being cancelled even as the Sunshine State turns on the sun in places unaffected by the floods, says Mrs Hardgrave, who has donated to the flood appeal and is offering SES workers free stays.

"All tourism operators have not been making any money for the past six to 12 months because people haven't had money to spend. 

"We normally have an 80 percent occupancy rate but it's between 20-30 percent occupancy over Christmas.

"We have contacted guests who have visited us 20 or 30 times and they've been hit by the floods now."

Queensland flood waters never touched Brisbane's scenic rim, The Whitsundays, Fraser Island, the Gold Coast and many other holiday destinations but tourism operators are struggling to keep their heads above water.

Mr Gschwind, a member of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, opened a Twitter account today (Monday, Jan 17) to get the word out to the world: don't cancel your Easter holidays, come to Queensland.

"We don't want to see a second wave of cancelations go over the industry," Mr Gschwind said.

He's encouraging all tourism operators to post "proof of life" photos on the Take a Queensland Holiday Facebook page.