Monster Storm Bears Down On Australia

reply to post by Havick007

Just curious, how close are you to the where this storm is now? Are you in Queensland?
Anyone really. I'm just curious if any of you aussies are in this sh#* right now?

Originally posted by BrokenCircles
When you are giving updates about an ongoing natural disaster, that to me doesnt seem like the appropriate time for a masculine battle of "My flagpole is bigger than yours"

eidt to add- You are both doing a good job of sharing info

edit on 2/2/11 by BrokenCircles because: (no reason given)

This is about total devestation to peoples lives not about your Egos - carry on.

reply to post by auswally


I call myself an Australia proudly and will continue to do so, QLD is a place that gets hit by nature regularly, besides ATS i have never met a community that understands that we as humans are insignificant and powerless to the will of nature, we just shut our internal eyes and believe that these are a once off freak of nature event, and forget about them by the time another disaster occurs in 5 years time, this time however nature has hit the state only weeks apart and hopefully some will realize that we are not in control, and even if we can predict these things 2 weeks in advanced our infrastructure is not strong enough to take it head on and never will be.

QLD is a place that gets hit by nature regularly, Being an Australian you would know about the problems we have with water across all eastern states. QLD being the top of the flow , they are known to store as much water in their dams and reservoirs and holding the rest of the nation to ransom, increasing the price they charge the other states to release the water to the farmers down stream causing strife with the lively-hood of farmers that have been on their land for generations. A month back they were caught out by storing too much water and not releasing it in time before the rain came, this is what caused the floods.

I would ask, are those types of acts worthy of being called Australian?

Originally posted by djtek
Lets hope they have a better emergency system than FEMA...this could be devastating.

If Australia has boy scouts, it will be better than FEMA.
2nd.

reply to post by BrokenCircles


No i'm not, im in Melbourne VIC. It's a fair way from QLD.

Although the news has been running for 7 hours straight here and still going and it's now midnight.

It's been reported that 89,000 homes have just lost power.

Not sure if it was Townsville or not...

Stay safe people of Oz I hope you all get through it safely.

Premier Anna Bligh press conference:

scary stuff, I hope their government treats them better than US did to Katrina. Aussie is going to be hurting after this, and has my hope.

I can't help but think humans are making crazy weather more common, all the cars,factories, agriculture, garbage, wasteful use of resources.

If we are not contributing to this at all, like the anti-global warming side is based off of, then this earth is pretty strong to resist all this unnatural surges of crap in our air,land,water.

Their argument against that is always something like "well all the other planets are warming up too" which to them makes it impossible for human actions to be the cause, when in reality it could be the star and our actions combined which would explain the crazy weather.

I dont know if this is clear to you or not, but to me, a star's warmth rising+human co2 increases would =rapid raised temp right? All the co2 in the air by the billions of tons+billions of barrels of oil in the ocean+tons of factories pumping crap 24/7 and wasting natural resources,+ billions of cars being even more wasteful+the death camps for cows that just add on to that = either raised temps or nothing at all?

I'm on the side that is raising temps

Originally posted by Vaski
reply to post by auswally

 

I call myself an Australia proudly and will continue to do so, QLD is a place that gets hit by nature regularly, besides ATS i have never met a community that understands that we as humans are insignificant and powerless to the will of nature, we just shut our internal eyes and believe that these are a once off freak of nature event, and forget about them by the time another disaster occurs in 5 years time, this time however nature has hit the state only weeks apart and hopefully some will realize that we are not in control, and even if we can predict these things 2 weeks in advanced our infrastructure is not strong enough to take it head on and never will be.

QLD is a place that gets hit by nature regularly, Being an Australian you would know about the problems we have with water across all eastern states. QLD being the top of the flow , they are known to store as much water in their dams and reservoirs and holding the rest of the nation to ransom, increasing the price they charge the other states to release the water to the farmers down stream causing strife with the lively-hood of farmers that have been on their land for generations. A month back they were caught out by storing too much water and not releasing it in time before the rain came, this is what caused the floods.

I would ask, are those types of acts worthy of being called Australian?

i was reading a report that if it did not rain in qld for 55 years there dams hold enough water to keep the current population alive.


also i just heard on the news that the force of this cyclone is as strong as a nuclear bomb. dunno how accurate that is , but if true that is unbelievable

This web cam still works

one guys web cam

I am unsure of his location but looks like they are getting a bit of a battering too.

Saying that, looks lie he has just gone offline as well.

Originally posted by Quasar_La-Zar
scary stuff, I hope their government treats them better than US did to Katrina. Aussie is going to be hurting after this, and has my hope.

I can't help but think humans are making crazy weather more common, all the cars,factories, agriculture, garbage, wasteful use of resources.

If we are not contributing to this at all, like the anti-global warming side is based off of, then this earth is pretty strong to resist all this unnatural surges of crap in our air,land,water.

Their argument against that is always something like "well all the other planets are warming up too" which to them makes it impossible for human actions to be the cause, when in reality it could be the star and our actions combined which would explain the crazy weather.

I dont know if this is clear to you or not, but to me, a star's warmth rising+human co2 increases would =rapid raised temp right? All the co2 in the air by the billions of tons+billions of barrels of oil in the ocean+tons of factories pumping crap 24/7 and wasting natural resources,+ billions of cars being even more wasteful+the death camps for cows that just add on to that = either raised temps or nothing at all?

I'm on the side that is raising temps

i dont know what happen with katrina but i know that people have been evacuating for 2 days now.
uthoritys have done alot of work to ensure people are safe.

and not to be bias. if you want to get an answer on if the aussie goverment treats its people better then fema did with its people just read up on the flood situation we had a couple of weeks ago.

Originally posted by Vaski
reply to post by auswally

 

I would ask, are those types of acts worthy of being called Australian?

No I think these are acts worthy of being called human.

Its humans all over the world that are acting this way whether its business riping off customers or governments ripping off its people or any combination you care to choose its human nature to compete, to win, to gain power or money but usually both. We all do it to some extent but obviously organisations and governments do it to a greater extent; they have the power/money/law to do so.

This guy is streaming live as well, currently moving camera around to show his backyard

www.ustream.tv...

besides my previous posts, i do hope as many people come out of this as safe as possible, I'm not a monster..

I can not believe with 3 days notice some people in the path of the cyclone refused to evacuate.

Lunacy!

reply to post by Lansky


Yeah i was just talking about that with a friend, 7 News was talking to an elderly resident that didnt evacuate after warnings and was now scared because she called emergency services but there is nothing they can do as it is too late.

This lady is in her 80's which is bad i know, but they were all given 2 days warning and the news was making it sound like the emergency services weren't helping... they were given plenty of notice but people chose to stay and now they will have to sit through and wait it out...

It's now too dangerous for emergency crews to be on the streets, all the evac centres are at capacity.

6 oldies in the house, storm surge could rise to second floor of their home.

no help expected till lunch time tomorrow for them so hopefully they can still stay safe for the night.

A schoolmate of mine is in Cairns and decided to ride it out at a friends house "a bit more cyclone proof, than ours" only a couple of miles from the coast. All prayers go with you from the UK!! Looks like they are in for one hell of a 24 hours...

I heard on the news earlier today that during the warning residents were told that they would be on their own for at least 24 hours.

I feel for the older people such as this lady who may have no family or a family that doesn't care for her to go to. Some older people dont think straight during these times, however a lot of younger people refuse to evacurate and just get out their iphones for cool videos to post on youtube.

same thing occured during the floods a few weeks back, a lot of people died by being on lower ground when two streets up they were fine, many people were there just to see what is happening out of curiosity and got caught up in it, i heard of one child drowning as his parents thought it was a novelty to let him swim in the water.

I heard one lady on the radio telling of her account of her family ringing her telling her that they were waist deep in water and needed help, she told the station that her qualifications as a nurse (WTF?) let her believe that they were doomed, her nephew asked her what can they do.

she said "get your valuables and put them in a high place"
the nephew said " i cant they are in the tv room"
she replied " Can you go to the tv room to get them (the valuables)"
he said "auntie, the tv room has broken off from the house and floated away"

i paraphrased this interview from what i remember of her own words on the radio, I dont believe she understood that she was coming across as greedy. it seemed that these people were clutching on to whatever was fixed to the ground so they aren't swept away from the flood and looking for help, however from her account of the story it seemed she was more concerned that they make their valuables safe so she can go past and reap the riches once they were gone..

these people died unfortunately.

The above story is partially unrelated to the cyclone, but goes to show peoples intentions at such times, some people are totally ignorant to the real dangers and importance of life over their material things.

if this were to occur to me, there is only one thing I am taking with me when i run out the door and that is my photo album, the rest i can replace.