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.

 

Premier Anna Bligh's good luck dragon.

It doesn't matter what portfolio Premier Anna Bligh has held over the years, whether its Disability or Education or ... no, not so sure about infrastructure ...

But she's always impressed people as a capable performer on top of the facts and issues able to reel off comments off the top of her head - her staff actually admire her.

Now as Premier she now has the opportunity to show that Australians are capable of planning to provide infrastructure that caters for future growth - and not just for growth, let's make it sustainable, ecologically-friendly, well thought out. Pray. Pray. Pray.

First the flood devastation and now Cyclone Yasi - who knows what's next!

But it sure is focusing attention on our leaders - and they all seem to have stepped up and done their 41 pirouettes en pointe before their captive audiences.

With all the leaders rubbing shoulders with The People maybe we can expect better government - everyone seems to have forgotten the shocking hung parliament.

What an age we live in! Perhaps we will see a dragon next.