Too little to too much

I've been following the news of the floods in Queensland for the past couple of weeks. My own hometown was affected a little, being only about 150 kms south of Brisbane. Happily, when I phoned him, my brother told me that although they had been flooded, it wasn't anything worse than the usual floods that they get most years. But as is reported in "Australia floods: Fears worsen for Brisbane", the floods that are devastating Brisbane right now are more serious.

According to the report, more than 20,000 homes throughout the state capital of Brisbane are under water or under threat. Because of the dangers, electricity has been cut to the central business district as well as much of the city, and people are using boats to get around the streets. And models predict that up to 40,000 homes might be hit before the waters recede. As they wait, Brisbane's flooded residents are living in special centres or camping on the roofs of their houses.

At first, it was worried about my own family, who have also been affected, but not too seriously, that prompted me to follow this news, but over the past week, the situation in Brisbane has become so serious that I've been keeping a closer watch. But horrible as it is, there are also lighter moments. The report includes a couple of videos, and in one of them, the man being interviewed says that his kids think it is fun to be wading through water in their house, and watching fish swim around the back door. This reminded me very strongly of my own childhood experiences of floods. My brothers, sisters and I liked them because it meant no school for a  couple of days, and we would float around the lower lying paddocks near our house in tractor tires. It was great fun. (I never thought about it at the time, I realise now that our father was keeping a careful eye on us as we were enjoying ourselves. I'm pretty sure he did not enjoy the floods.)

We had one or two floods a year, but most were not very serious. However, in 1974, there was a really big one, the biggest in decades. In fact, the same floods 37 years ago also hit Brisbane even worse than the current flood. I was much younger 37 years ago, and the floods that year were serious enough to stop school for more than a week. All the roads were cut, and for the first, and last, time in my memory, the water rose high enough to come into our house, which was on higher land than most of our property. I guess I was a rather silly kid, although the kids in Brisbane apparently feel the same way, also my brothers and sisters. As the water rose, first to isolate our house on a little bit of land, and then closer, and closer, we got more and more excited. And then the water had covered all the land and was rising up the pillars and steps towards our house. Just like in Brisbane, a lot of snakes were also being driven to higher land, along with other animals. Some of the snakes where we lived were very dangerous, but although careful, I wasn't scared of them. Fortunately, snakes are generally more scared of people than people are of them, so they didn't bother us. When it was obvious that the water was going to come into the house, we put everything up as high as we could. The fridge was big and very heavy, and I think it was the most difficult.

After teh water rose up over the floor, we were pretty much housebound, and like teh kids in Brisbane, we had the unusual experience of paddling around in water from room to room, and watching the fish swim past our back-door.  I think that lasted two or three days, and the fun didn't last very long. Fortunately, the electricity was kept on most of the time, but not being able to go out got a bit boring, and after a while, paddling though water on the way to the dining room also became less fun. The only excitement was when our neighbours came by in boats to chat. I don't think I would find it so entertaining today, but thankfully such floods only come once in several decades. !974 was enough for me, and I suspect Brisbane wishes it was not now being repeated. My mother didn't enjoy it either, and soon after, she insisted on buying a piece of higher, adjacent land to build a new house on. So she hasn't been troubled too much this time.

And now I'm remembering some of the impressive temporary flooding of the Silom area of Bangkok when I was first living here years ago. On one occasion after heavy rain and high tides, I had to walk through water up to my knees covering Silom and Surawong. That was a bit worrying, because it was hard to remember where the holes in the footpaths were, so I ended up walking on the road, which everyone else was also doing. I guess the Bangkok municipal authority has done something about that, because although there is still some flooding after very heavy rain, there has not been such serious flooding for more 15 years or more.

And I could probably continue, with one memory leading to another to another idea, but I think this is  enough. I might call my brother again just to get an update.

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References

Australia floods: Fears worsen for Brisbane. (2011, January 12). BBC New. Retrieved January 13, 2011 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12167950