More on the floods...

Everyone in Canada is asking me about the flooding in Oz.  

On TV, all day everyday, is the flooding in Queensland.  It’s making the news around the world: as it should.  It’s a huge event, affecting an enormous land-mass here in Australia. 

Clean up is going to be terribly expensive and there have been 17 lives taken, so far. 

They are expecting to find more bodies as they start taking out the trash.  

But I needed to put it all in perspective and thought about Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  The Levee system in New Orleans failed, and 80% of that city flooded, the water stayed around for weeks.  The loss of life was horrific: 1,577 in Louisiana, Mississippi lost 238 and even Florida had 14 deaths. 

The smell must have been horrible. They say Brisbane is already finding that aspect of the flood a little unbearable.

Five years later New Orleans still has thousands of displaced residents living in ‘temporary’ accommodation in the flood damaged area of the US.

And then there was Cyclone Tracey on Christmas Eve right here in Australia: in Darwin, at the top of the continent.

71 people lost their life in the storm.  Darwin itself was pretty much destroyed.. and very quickly, with very little warning.  

But those were cyclones.  What is happening in Australia today is really just the wet season: saturated ground and ‘king’ tides.  For the most part, they knew it was coming.   

As the coverage has dragged out.. for days.. I got curious and checked out flooding on Wikipedia.  Seventeen deaths is seventeen too many, but doesn't hold a candle to the biggest death toll due to flooding ever... in China of course.  
  

Somewhere between one and four million people were swept away by the Yellow river in 1931… Four MILLION people!  Somewhere between 1 and 4.. they aren't even sure about 3 million people!? 

And that same river also receives the second and third highest score.  People just don't get out of the way? It's amazing what being hungry will do. 

 In 1975 the Ru River took fourth place, also in China..

Lots of people, lots of deaths from flooding… In India, around Mumbai, the Monsoon rains of 2005 killed 1,500 people. 

Spring flooding in 2004 killed between 1,600 and 3,500 people (again..they aren’t even sure?) in the steadily struggling country of Haiti and it’s sister, the Dominican Republic. 

Pakistani monsoons killed between 1600 and 2000 people in 2010.  African Nations were hit in 2007 and 353 drowned.  Even the desert country of Yemen lost 347 souls: 1996. 

In 1099, high tides and storms resulted in the loss of 100,000 people from the Netherlands and England and more recently, the UK lost 13 people in the floods of 2007. 

And we get floods in Canada too.. 198 deaths are related to flooding. 

Hurricane Hazel killed 81 when it struck southern Ontario in 1954.  People get carried off in the yearly thaws that hit us every April. The most expensive flood was in 1950 when the Red River Valley flooded, which it still does in those in those spring time thaws.. hitting the news.

Back in Australia, this last flood has brought back memories of what happened in 1974 when Brisbane flooded and 16 people died.    They say a couple of these weren’t actually flood-related but really, who knows: natural disasters are traumatic events. 

And that is why I understand why this is all over the news, even though I am getting a bit tired of nothing but minute by minute coverage of the Australian floods.  But we need some perspective. 

What the people of Australia have lost is mainly ‘stuff’.. it can be replaced.  The actual death toll is pretty low; Thanks be to God.

And while I know I shouldn’t compare disasters.. or think of things like “what is worse.. dying in a flood or a fire”, that is where my mind wanders.  The fires a couple of years ago didn’t destroy as much real estate, but the deaths were greater and much more horrific.  The stories of the heat and the terror from those fires are unimaginable.  

Nature is shockingly powerful and certainly has my attention. 

Australians are resilient and will get through this.  They have already cleaned up a lot of the mud and while it may take years, they will get there.

I suspect they will do a whole lot better than those poor buggers in the US..  For one thing, the water invaded a much richer area.  People lost a lot, but most of them survived and that really is what is important.  Life may not be the same, but what’s wrong with different?  People seem to be pitching in and helping one another and relationships are a whole lot more precious than televisions and couches.

In Kununura it is ‘The Wet”, but here we are on the border between the tropics and the desert and even the monsoon rains are no where near what they are in other parts of Australia.

We do have our man made lake, Lake Argyle, and the huge damn that holds the lake water in.  If that were to fail, I figure we would still be fine.. it is a long way off and would go the other direction… insha’allah.

Besides, I just don’t have a lot of stuff to lose anymore… we have our couch and television but all that’s on is live coverage of the floods! 

Heck, the guys in Queensland get a front row seat!

Vassi and I are doing just fine: No worries.