Flood chaos forces mass evacuations in Australia

The yearly denial of global warming, climate change, is now in full force -- because it's winter, cold, and very stormy, snowy, nasty. The denial continues, even though THIS is exactly what we were told to expect -- extremes in weather, larger storms, etc., etc., etc.

Now -- direct from Australia:


28 December 2010 Last updated at 21:39 ET

Flood chaos forces mass evacuations in Australia

North-eastern Australia's worst flooding in decades is continuing to cause chaos across the region.

Around 1,000 people in Queensland have been evacuated, including the entire population of the town of Theodore.

The government has declared Theodore and two other towns in the region to be disaster zones, and forecasters say the floods have not yet peaked.

The cost of the damage is expected to top AU$1bn (£650m), including massive losses of sunflower and cotton crops.

Army Black Hawk helicopters are being despatched to help evacuate the 300 residents of Theodore, where every building in the town apart from the police station has been flooded, local media report.

The town's river has risen more than 50cm (20 in) above its previous recorded high, Emergency Management Queensland spokesman Bruce O'Grady told Australia's ABC News.

"We're in unchartered territory in that area," he said. "The [weather] bureau is indicating it could go higher."
'No easing'

Inland towns such as Chinchilla and Dalby are all under water; the nearby town of Warra, and the towns of Alpha and Jericho, west of Emerald, have also been declared disaster zones, with hundreds of homes flooded or at risk.

Media reports said Dalby was running low on drinking water supplies after its water treatment plant was damaged by the floods.
Map

A further 200 homes were swamped in Bundaberg on the south-east coast and hundreds of roads in the region have been made impassable.

The state capital, Brisbane, has recorded its wettest December in more than 150 years. Cyclone Tasha, which hit Queensland on Saturday, also brought torrential rain to the state.

Long traffic queues have formed outside isolated towns and police are arresting people who need rescuing after driving into badly hit areas, says the BBC's Steve Marshall in Sydney.

Further south, in New South Wales, about 175 people who had spent the night in evacuation centres have returned home.

But 800 people in the towns of Urbenville and Bonalbo are expected to be cut off for another 24 hours.

While the rain is now easing, water is continuing to flow from sodden land across central and southern Queensland into already swollen rivers, adds our correspondent.

Australia's Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts told ABC the worst was yet to come.

"Over the next 48 hours rain will be easing but the real impact in some communities won't be felt for a couple of days when floodwaters begin to recede," he said.

"Once the rain finishes there will still be significant flooding impacts over the next few days."

Farming groups says the floods could cause up to $403m (£261m) in damage to crops, badly hitting an industry which was already suffering the effects of a lengthy drought.
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Note: flooding hitting an industry ... suffering from a lengthy drought.

The drought has been called "the big dry" -- now, more rain than recorded in over 150 years.

Exactly the kind of stuff predicted by global warming/climate change.

Of course, soon the deniers will admit to massive climate change. Their next step will be to deny any human involvement. The religious sorts will say it's "the wrath of god" for our "sinful ways" -- esp. homosexuality. The "rational", though still anti-science "conservatives" will say it's "natural" -- that it's a "natural" result of human actions will never even cross their minds.

Along with destroying the world economy, these fools will destroy the planet. Actually, they will not destroy the planet -- they will destroy MAN. When we're gone, the planet will take its sweet time and allow itself to heal. Eventually all our waste might just become the carbon based fuel that sustains another lifeform.

Doesn't that sound like fun?