Quotulatiousness

February 8, 2012

European energy policy based on renewables falters in face of severe winter weather

Filed under: Environment, Europe, Health, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:06

Kevin Myers on the folly of abandoning nuclear power generation in favour of renewables:

Russia’s main gas-company, Gazprom, was unable to meet demand last weekend as blizzards swept across Europe, and over three hundred people died. Did anyone even think of deploying our wind turbines to make good the energy shortfall from Russia?

Of course not. We all know that windmills are a self-indulgent and sanctimonious luxury whose purpose is to make us feel good. Had Europe genuinely depended on green energy on Friday, by Sunday thousands would be dead from frostbite and exposure, and the EU would have suffered an economic body blow to match that of Japan’s tsunami a year ago. No electricity means no water, no trams, no trains, no airports, no traffic lights, no phone systems, no sewerage, no factories, no service stations, no office lifts, no central heating and even no hospitals, once their generators run out of fuel.

Modern cities are incredibly fragile organisms, which tremble on the edge of disaster the entire time. During a severe blizzard, it is electricity alone that prevents a midwinter urban holocaust. We saw what adverse weather can do, when 15,000 people died in the heatwave that hit France in August 2003. But those deaths were spread over a month. Last weekend’s weather, without energy, could have caused many tens of thousands of deaths over a couple of days.

[. . .]

Frau Merkel has announced that Germany is going to phase out nuclear power, simply because of the Japanese tsunami. Well, that is like basing water-collection policies in Rhineland-Westphalia on the monsoon cycle of Borneo. As I was saying last week, the Germans have a powerfully emotional attachment to everything that is “green”, and an energy policy based on renewables will usually win German hearts. But it will not protect the owners of those hearts from frostbite and death due to exposure, for wind can often be not so much a Renewable as an Unusable, and also an Unpredictable, an Unstorable, and — normally when it’s very cold — an Unmovable.

The seriousness of this is hard to exaggerate. The temperature in the Baltic countries last weekend was -33 degrees Celsius. The Eurasian landmass from Calais to Naples to Siberia was an icefield in which hundreds of millions of people were trapped. Without coal, oil and nuclear energy, mass deaths of the old and the young would have occurred on the first night. Three nights on of such conditions, and even the physically fit would have been dying of exposure, as the temperature inside dwellings fell and began to match that of the outside, an inverse image of what happened during the French heatwave 10 years ago, when there was no escape from the heat.

February 3, 2012

Great moments in advertising

Filed under: Environment, Europe, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:55

This is not one of them:

BMW apologized after a PR strategy to pay for the naming rights to a weather system backfired — that system turned into the deep freeze that’s claimed dozens of lives across Europe.

The goal was to promote BMW’s Mini Cooper brand by paying Germany’s meteorological office 299 euros ($392) to name a system “Cooper” — a practice in place since 2002 to help fund weather monitoring work in Germany. Unfortunately for BMW, the system it was assigned to turned out to be a killer.

On the face of it, this seems like a pretty stupid notion: pay money to associate your brand with a major weather disturbance? Didn’t BMW’s PR folks notice that the association most people have with named weather is negative?

September 2, 2011

US flood insurance is “a veritable bucket of fail”

Filed under: Economics, Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:12

Felix Salmon on the state of US flood insurance:

Ben Berkowitz has a big report on the the National Flood Insurance Program — something which is a veritable bucket of fail. In a nutshell, it undercuts private insurers and therefore is the only game in town; it insures only a small minority of homeowners; and it loses gobs of money. In September 2005, the NFIP was $1.5 billion in hock to the federal government; that number has now ballooned to $21 billion, and is certain to rise further.

There’s a simple answer to all these problems: let the NFIP raise its rates. And I don’t understand why it’s not being allowed to do so. If the rates rose, then that might allow private insurers into the flood-insurance game, giving consumers a choice and helping to get the word out about how insuring your home against flood damage is a really good idea. The NFIP could become profitable, and thereby start paying back all the money it owes. And while homeowners are quite price sensitive when it comes to flood insurance, the fact is that so few homeowners take out flood insurance right now that the number would be unlikely to fall dramatically if rates went up to a reasonable level.

August 22, 2011

Ontario town of Goderich hit by tornado

Filed under: Cancon, Environment — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:46

One man died and nearly 40 others were reported injured in the Sunday tornado which devastated the historic town centre:

Environment Canada confirmed the Southwestern Ontario town was struck by either an F-2 or F-3 level tornado around 4 p.m. Sunday. The rating makes this the most powerful storm to strike Ontario since 1996, bringing winds of up to 300 km/h.

The one fatality, a 61-year-old man, was confirmed by officials as Norman Laberge of Lucknow, Ont. He had been working at a nearby salt mine when the tornado struck. Reports indicate he was working on a crane that collapsed during the storm.

Goderich’s historic square was hit directly by the storm and left completely ravaged. Several buildings had their roofs ripped off, numerous windows were shattered and a number of cars were tossed around. The downtown area, which has classic historic buildings, has been declared a “no-go” zone because of the severity of the damage.

July 13, 2011

Expanding government-provided flood insurance?

Filed under: Economics, Environment, Government, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:42

It has always amazed me that the US government is the primary insurer for flood damage, but the idea of putting the few remaining private insurace companies out of business is insane:

The House of Representatives is scheduled this week, as early as today, to consider an extension and “reform” of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), administered by FEMA. Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the NFIP has been about $18 billion in the hole. And this is from a program that only collects around $2 billion a year in premiums, which barely covers losses and expenses in a normal year. So make no mistake, the NFIP is still on course to cost the taxpayer billions more in the future.

Even before Katrina, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the NFIP was receiving a subsidy of close to a billion dollars a year. Under CBO’s optimistic projections, the House’s reform bill would increase NFIP revenues by about $4 billion over the next ten years, making only a small dent in the program’s current deficit.

If private insurers aren’t willing to offer insurance to people and businesses located on flood plains, isn’t that a strong indication that building a house or a plant on that location is a bad idea? Why should people who chose not to locate in risky locations be forced to subsidize the risk-taking of those who do?

June 14, 2011

Pack up your worries about global warming: unpack your parka and mittens

Filed under: Environment, Science — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 15:18

I’ve been skeptical about the whole global warming issue, and I’d like to be equally skeptical about a new ice age threat:

What may be the science story of the century is breaking this evening, as heavyweight US solar physicists announce that the Sun appears to be headed into a lengthy spell of low activity, which could mean that the Earth — far from facing a global warming problem — is actually headed into a mini Ice Age.

Lower sunspot activity translates into likely lower temperatures here on earth, just like in the “Maunder Minimum” period, also known as the “Little Ice Age”.

Early records of sunspots indicate that the Sun went through a period of inactivity in the late 17th century. Very few sunspots were seen on the Sun from about 1645 to 1715. Although the observations were not as extensive as in later years, the Sun was in fact well observed during this time and this lack of sunspots is well documented. This period of solar inactivity also corresponds to a climatic period called the “Little Ice Age” when rivers that are normally ice-free froze and snow fields remained year-round at lower altitudes. There is evidence that the Sun has had similar periods of inactivity in the more distant past.

As I wrote back in 2004, “I’ve never been all that convinced of the accuracy of the scientific evidence presented in favour of the Global Warming theory, especially as it seemed to play rather too clearly into the hands of the anti-growth, anti-capitalist, pro-world government folks. A world-wide ecological disaster, clearly caused by human action, would allow a lot of authoritarian changes which would radically reduce individual freedom and increase the degree of social control exercised by governments over the actions and movement of their citizenry. “

On the other hand, as Bjorn Lomborg has pointed out, humanity is better adapted to dealing with higher temperatures than lower ones — as are most living creatures. Given a choice between the risks of increasing temperatures globally and the risks of a new ice age, it should be pretty easy to figure out which scenario allows the better chances for all of humanity to survive and thrive.

Update: Anthony Watts has more. “If we are right, this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades,” Hill said. “That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”

Update, 15 June: My skepticism is overwhelmed by the skeptic-in-this-instance New Scientist‘s Michael Marshall, who does the quick math that a Maunder Minimum for the next 90 years would only lower global temperatures by 0.3C. And New Scientist is still bullish on the global warming potential of between 2 and 4.5 degrees Celsius over that same time period. They’re science writers and I’m not, but I have to say I’m still much more worried about the potential cooling than the potential warming.

February 9, 2011

QotD: (Historical) weather and climate

Filed under: Environment, History, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 13:01

I read a lot of history and thus know a fair bit about how weather impact has been perceived by humans over time. It is a fact that the 20th century was an abnormally lucky hundred years, meteorologically speaking. The facts I managed to jam into tweets included (a) the superstorm that flooded 300 square miles of the Central Valley in California in the 1860s, (b) rainfall levels we’d consider drought conditions were normal in the U.S. Midwest before about 1905, and (c) storms of a violence we’d find hard to believe were commonly reported in the 1800s. I had specifically in mind something I learned from the book Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild, which relays eyewitness accounts of thunderstorms so intense that travelers had to steeple their hands over their noses in order to breathe air instead of water; but a sense that storms of really theatrical violence were once common comes through in many other histories.

We had a quiet century geophysically as well — no earthquakes even nearly as bad as the New Madrid event of 1812, which broke windows as far north as Montreal. And no solar storms to compare with the Carrington Event of 1859, which seriously damaged the then-nascent telegraph infrastructure and if it recurred today would knock out power and telecomms so badly that we’d be years recovering and casualties would number in the hundreds of thousands, possibly the millions.

(I’m concentrating on 19th-century reports because those tended to be well-documented, but earlier records tell us it was the 20th century calm that was unusual, not the 19th-century violence.)

The awkward truth is that there are very large forces in play in the biosphere, and when they wander out of the ranges we’re adapted to, we suffer and die a lot and there really isn’t a great deal we can do about it; we don’t operate at the required energy scales. For that matter, I can think of several astronomical catastrophes that could be lurking just outside our light-cone only to wipe out all multicellular life on Earth next week. Reality is like that.

Eric S. Raymond, “Heavy weather and bad juju”, Armed and Dangerous, 2011-02-03

February 1, 2011

Fearmongering media empty Toronto highways in advance of Snowpocalypse 2011

Filed under: Cancon, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:56

I had a great commute into downtown Toronto today: unlike my usual pattern of spending 20-30 minutes inching down the Don Valley Parkway from Finch to York Mills (and then sometimes another 20-30 minutes from there to Bloor/Bayview), today’s drive was actually pleasant. There was a bit of congestion in the right-hand lanes coming south on the 404 past the Sheppard/401 exit, but other than that, I didn’t even need to downshift until just north of Eglinton.

I’m sure some of this is due to the efforts of energetic, enthusiastic news and weather folks at 680 News and other media outlets. They’ve been in full pantswetting mode for the last 24 hours, warning us about the alarming possibility of snowfall. That drumbeat of doom must have persuaded lots of drivers to avoid coming in to the looming epicentre of severe winter weather at Yonge and Bloor.

For those of you unfamiliar with Toronto weather, you probably think we experience regular snowfall, with cold temperatures and high winds (like Montreal and Winnipeg often do). If Toronto did experience things like that, we wouldn’t be able to deploy any troops to Afghanistan, because they’d all be in Toronto trying to save the city from utter panic and absolute civic collapse. Toronto doesn’t handle winter very well at all.

I thought it was just the highways, but Darkwatermuse found the same phenomenon on city streets today:

Did anybody else notice the light traffic today? I had to head uptown on the bus for a mid-day appointment and the bus cruised slowly past each empty bus stop. Stops which normally have two or three people debarking or embarking the bus.

On the way home I found myself alone on the bus, not considering the driver. If the driver’s seat had been empty I would have snapped a photo of it with my smart phone and emailed the photo to the media. Assuming I survived the crash and after the bus came to a complete stop and having shown somebody at the TTC my valid transfer.

Alone. On the Sherbourne bus. That’s like being alone in the serving line at the shelter on Christmas Eve. Strangely, a lot of those same missing people normally take the Sherbourne bus so I wasn’t too fussed being alone for once.

For once the bus didn’t smell like 3AM vomit and an ashtray overflowing with Player’s Navy Cut cigarette butts. An unlikely outcome just like snowballs in hades or, apparently, snow in Toronto.

Of course, I may have to retract all of this if the weather really does (for once) come close to the media’s hyperventilated predictions: I’m meeting another member of the VRWC (libertarian sub-committee) after work tonight, so I’ll get to experience a bit more of the joy of Toronto in snow.

Update, 2 February: As we few, bedraggled survivors claw our way out of the Massive, Unprecedented, Crippling Snowfall, the CBC offers us their support and sympathy:

January 28, 2011

Finns unhappy with icy iPhones

Filed under: Europe, Law, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:23

Bill Ray reports on the source of Finnish unhappiness with Apple iPhone performance:

Finnish iPhone users unhappy at the inability of the handset to operate below zero are entitled to their money back, even if the limitation appears in the small print.

The clarification comes from the Finland’s Consumer Agency, as reported by Finnish news agency YLE.fi, in response to numerous questions from concerned Finns who are unhappy that their shiny Apple toys won’t promise to work again until the spring, at best. So unless the shop specifically stated the zero-degree operational limit, then the regulator reckons iPhone-purchasing Finns are entitled to their money back.

Finland, like the UK, requires all items sold new to operate in the way they might reasonably be expected to do. Small print can’t negate those rights, and it’s reasonable for Finns to expect to be able to make phone calls outside, so refunds would seem to be in order. Meanwhile the regulator is preparing a list of questions for Apple about how it trains its staff, and how badly the iPhone breaks down when it gets cold.

January 17, 2011

Another report from Brisbane

Filed under: Environment — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:49

My friend Roger is doing well (having been outside the worst of the flooding), and sent this update on the rail and transportation situation in Queensland:

A couple of pictures of the western rail line from Brisbane to Toowoomba. The line, mostly double-track has been extensively damaged and willl probably be out of commission for over three months.

This shows flood debris, and a bull, lodged on one bridge. Some 20 people in the area are also missing so there may well be bodies in the debris as well. It is being carefully checked but there is a huge amount. One body was found in her house which had already been searched twice before.

Part of the Moura coal line in Central Queensland. There could be some delays here as well.

Meanwhile, in muddy Brisbane, in an effort to keep cars off the roads all public transport is free for the next few days. The railways parked their electric commuter trains on some tracks that were well above flood level. Unfortunately, graffiti artists, using Facebook and Twatter, called up every idiot on the East Cost that had a can of spray paint. Some even came from Melbourne. About half the train fleet was so badly overpainted that the sets could not be run. Cost estimates are in the order of a couple of million to clean.

The cops can now read Facebook etc. and feel they have enough evidence to throw at least some of the perps in the slammer. Hopefully with their private parts painted a bright blue.

Update: It’s not just flooding in Queensland . . . there’s also now flooding in Victoria. There are always idiots who try to do stupid things, especially around flooded rivers:

A bizarre decision to ride an inflatable doll down a flood-swollen Yarra River blew up in a woman’s face yesterday when she lost her latex playmate in a rough patch.

The incident prompted a warning from police that blow-up sex toys are “not recognised flotation devices’’.

Police and a State Emergency Services crew were called to the rescue when the woman and a man, both 19, struck trouble at Warrandyte North about 4.30pm yesterday.

They were floating down the river on two inflatable dolls and had just passed the Pound Bend Tunnel when the woman lost her toy in turbulent water.

January 15, 2011

Toronto really isn’t part of Canada

Filed under: Cancon, Environment, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:05

If Toronto was part of Canada, why would a forecast of five centimetres of snow (that’s about two inches) require a special weather statement from Environment Canada?

Really, Toronto? Five measly centimetres and you need a special “OMG! Snow!” notice from the weather folks? That’s too silly for parody.

I mentioned it to Elizabeth before starting this post, and she suggested that it’s another attempt to set up the media template for next year: “Look at the huge increase in special weather statements for the GTA over the last few years. Clearly this proves [global warming | climate change | climate chaos] is real.”

January 14, 2011

Waters starting to recede in Brisbane

Filed under: Economics, Environment — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:53

Roger Henry sends another update:

Flood waters have receded far enough today that some serious cleaning up can commence. A semi-organised army of volunteers descended on the various suburbs that they could get access to and just started helping home and shop owners clean up. Tomorrow, an organized army will be available. Some 50,000 people, in two shifts, will be bussed into various efforst to do some serious cleaning. On Sunday it is expected they will do it again. An amazing community effort.


Photo from The Australian


Photo from The Australian

In the long run though things are still serious. Everyone is going to have to pay for the damage and loses, and this includes you guys. Due to earlier bad weather in Oz, global wheat prices are at record levels, the current flooding has almost destroyed the sugar crop thus global sugar prices have almost doubled. Coal shortages will be sending steel prices up so your imports are going to be that much dearer, and so on an do on.

Individuals here have some heart-breaking decisions in front of them. One middle-aged couple we saw, had lost their rented house, their entire possessions, the car — with payments owing — and their jobs. They both told the camera that they were all right. What the Hell. How can they be all right? They are sleeping on the floor in a Church hall wearing donated clothing. Sure, they seemed fit and determined and, one hopes, they will get going again, but they were not all right. There are lots more like them.

Sadly, some looters have come out of the shadows. 18 people have been arrested so far and the cops have reminded potential perps that there is a possible ten year sentence for looting.

Roads and rail are badly damaged. Some pics of exposed rail tracks where miles of it has been washed out. Some major bridges are also damaged. One large, steel structure was visibly out of alignment.

By and large, much like any community does when it has had a kick in the teeth, people are regrouping and getting order restored. It might take awhile, but it will all work out.

It will be very useful if we don’t have to do it all again in the near future.

Some humour in it all. A liquor store had about 500 bottles of wine that had lost their labels. The owner was proposing a lucky dip sale or a blind auction. He had about two dozen volunteers washing, drying, and re-stacking his stock. Didn’t seem to be much fear of any of it ‘walking’.

Update: Here’s an image from the Brisbane City Council, showing the extent of the flooding (flooded areas in yellow, river banks in darker yellow):

Additional information on the flood history of Brisbane at the New Scientist website.

January 13, 2011

More updates from Brisbane

Filed under: Environment — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:09

Roger Henry is thankfully out of the worst of the flooded area, but he’s been sending updates:

Most of the “Southbank” recreation area has been inundated, including the ‘beach’. Shouldn’t be much of a recovery problem once the mud has been hosed off. Don’t know about the maritime museum. I imagine that the old graving dock would have flooded, but the last pictures I saw of the ship was that the bottom was sealed — maybe not sound, but it should resist a short immersion — and she was moored fore and aft. Thus I doubt if she has gone off.

The river ferries, cross-river and the cats were all moved down into Moreton Bay and secured in a marina somewhere. The pontoons, bridges, sheds etc, have been largely washed away and may take some time to replace. The Moggil vehicle ferry, a quite large vessel, was saved after a chopper was used to fly in an extra anchor. Otherwise, the military had orders to sink her.

Literally hundreds of small, and not so small, boats and pontoons washed down the river. One guy had his fore-sail up to try and get some steerage and was heading downstream at a fair clip. Don’t know how he fared, A large, floating restaurant was wrecked against a bridge piling.

A salvage firm has been doing a brisk business herding up all these wayward vessels and parking them where best they can.

Police have also caught a few thieves trying to do some ‘salvage’. One guy had winched a pontoon and speed boat on to a trailer when intercepted by the cops. They confiscated everything as ‘evidence’, gave him a summons and told him to walk home.

There has been some looting in Ipswich. The Mayor said that if they could find a lamppost that wasn’t submerged it should be put to its alternative use. Alternatively, if someone caught a looter and tied them to a tree as a flood gauge then he, the Mayor, wouldn’t be fussed.

Don’t know about the rail museum. The flood height was about three feet lower than estimated so it may have been spared. The local station had at least four foot of water in it. The platforms were covered.

The situation remains dire and there have been a couple more drownings. Otherwise it is now a waiting game. Went shopping today. A few empty shelves in the supermarket but still plenty of essentials. Stocked up on a few necessarys. Traffic was a bit thin and the nearby freeway sounded very quiet. Plenty of cars moving around but not many trucks. About one third of the small merchants in the shopping mall were closed. Probably couldn’t get their staff in.

Interesting pictures of our previous Prime Minister walking around the streets of his neighbourhoood. Up to his knees in flood water and helping people move. He was still at it after the cameras left. Very democratic.

And a further update about eight hours later:

Water levels, though high, are dropping and the weather remains fine. A clean-up plan is afoot, to start at first light tomorrow and proceed progressively until the water is out of the city. This just gets roads, power, phones etc. back on line. Individual houses and businesses will be addressed as time goes by. It all sound sensible and is really the outcome of some long considered disaster recovery planning.

I did go to another supermarket this afternoon. One would think that looters had been in. No bottled water, milk, eggs, bread, long-life milk and coffee mate, toilet paper or veges. Plenty of soft-drinks, frozen foods, meat,. Ice creams deli lines etc. All of which require refrigeration. There is now very little chance of further power cuts. It all seems a bit odd as supply routes are now re-opening and, for those not directly flooded, there is almost no need to hoard supplies.

Some of the towns and villages in the far west parts of the state are having problems both with supplies and the risk of more severe flooding. Some towns for the second or third time in almost as many weeks.

Some 62 suburbs are affected. Bulimba, which has some low-lying parts is largely underwater. TV has been showing extensive footage of the Brisbane area and there is no doubt some/many very sad stories. The most dramatic area is an agricultural valley about 70 miles to the west that was hit by very fast flash-floods. This is where most of the spectacular devastation occurred and where most of the deaths happened. There is now some 18 dead and 70+ almost certainly dead. Army, police and volunteers are searching about 200 miles of creeks and fields looking for the missing. Also the place where most of the terrifying personal stories are coming to light.

So, as a disaster, it has been awful for very many people, but I remain personally unaffected. That also feels quite odd. It is like there had been a tornado that flattened one side of town but left yours untouched.

Not the end times. Part of living near the tropics. Although the weather for the next week or so should be kind, there are two cyclones forming up in the Coral Sea and one of them is well placed to swing in to the coast and gives us a real pasting before the end of the month. Or it might drift over to New Zealand :-)

January 12, 2011

How urban planning may have contributed to the Toowoomba flood damage

Filed under: Environment — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:07

Heather Brown goes back into flood-ravaged Toowoomba:

Early yesterday morning I went back to the bruised and battered Margaret Street to support any local business that still had the heart to open. My coffee shop was handing out free coffees to the battered owners of the local businesses who had lost so much. When I went to buy my newspaper, the newsagent told me he was devastated, not because of what had happened but because the engineer who had worked on the beautification project told him he couldn’t make them listen when he pleaded for bigger pipes — “18-footers” he called them — to let the water through, because it simply didn’t suit the aesthetics of the architects and landscapers.

So that’s what happened to my city, folks, the same as happened to so much of flooded Queensland. We did stupid and really, really dumb things because we thought we could get away with them. We built the wrong sort of houses and the wrong sort of bridges. We built towns and suburbs on flood plains. And we ignored at our peril the forces of nature and the history of the great floods that have shaped this continent for thousands of years.

In our arrogance, we created towns and cities better suited to the whims of bean-counters and city-bound architects than the natural lie of the land. And for 20 years we cheerfully welcomed new settlers to Queensland with a “beautiful one day, perfect the next”.

We didn’t tell them what this place was really like when it rained. And we were wrong.

H/T to Roger Henry for the link.

January 11, 2011

Footage of flash flooding in Queensland

Filed under: Randomness — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:24

You can donate to the flood relief effort at http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html.

H/T to BoingBoing for the link.

Update: The Guardian is reporting at least nine people are dead, with many more missing:

Floodwaters are now heading for Brisbane where the river, which runs through the centre of the city, has broken its banks and police have urged local residents to begin evacuations.

Police described the wall of water that swept through the city of Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, as an “inland instant tsunami”. Cars were tossed like toys down the street, trees uprooted and businesses inundated as the floodwaters tore through the centre of town. Four people including two children were killed.

“Houses were ripped from their stumps. This is unbelievable damage,” said the Toowoomba mayor, Peter Taylor.

From Toowoomba, the water flowed down the Lockyer valley where emergency services plucked more than 40 people from houses isolated by the torrent, which hit with little warning. Thunderstorms and driving rain were keeping helicopters from reaching people still in danger this morning.

Update, the second: My friend and occasional contributor of blogging material Roger Henry is in the Brisbane area and reports on local conditions:

It has been raining all day with a prolonged thunder-storm. West of here it has been raining at an average 6 inches an hour since early this morning. All bets against a major flood are now off. Ipswich looks like it might go underwater. Caboolture, to our north, flooded so fast that residents were fleeing on foot with no clear idea of where to go (Uphill?).

The four-lane highway north is now a 20 mile long parking lot as the cops try to get traffic turned around. That should be fun.

Stocked up on batteries, candles, tinned food and some extra gas cylinders for the little stove. Water is not an issue:-)

We were assured, by experts, that the rain would stop this morning. The opposite seems to have occurred and now they are hoping tomorrow might be fine.

Ooops. Emergency services have just issued a continuing severe weather alert for the next twelve hours.

The problem is not confined to here. Bad weather has spread into
northern New South Wales, and several rivers there are now in flood.

Getting very interesting.

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