blamebrampton

My friend

i_autumnheart is in a safe spot in Queensland, and doubtless doing dozens of useful things, because she is terrific and like that. One of them is this map:

You can see the size of Australia compared to the continental USA. The dark blue line is the normal monsoon zone. The blue and pale blue lines were the original estimates of the flooded and flood-affected (cut off as well as largely underwater) areas, the purple and magenta lines are autumn's updated areas as of this afternoon. The flood-affected area in Queensland alone is already significantly bigger than the state of Texas, the flooded area larger than California. (If you can only think in terms of Europe, check out this link for comparative sizes.) Thanks,

anthraxia , for the original link.

Careful viewers will notice there are two other major floods in the country at the moment. If you look down to the bottom left and find Perth, a bit below LA, there is a massive fire near there that has only just been brought under control.

The upside of living in a country of such madness is that people are generally great. It's not just the former Prime Minister, many people have been fabulous with supermarkets giving away stock to local people and strangers continuing to form human chains to help people rescue possessions and stock. The RSPCA put out an alert because they were unable to cope and within two hours people had stepped forward to foster all the excess animals at that time. People who were evac-ing an old caretaker in Brisbane took his budgerigars away in their pockets because he did not have a portable cage -- a whole new dimension to budgie smuggling.

The death-toll from the flash-flooding has risen to 12, but in good news the missing are now down to 48, though with grave fears held for 9 of them, as the news phrase has it. The expected peak has been revised down, which has meant that only 3000-odd homes in Ipswich were inundated rather than 4000. Things are still getting deeper in Brisbane, and will for at least another day.

And yes, there are still snakes in the water, and crocodiles, and now at least one shark.

One of my girlfriends was teasing me because I told her to fill her saucepans with water while they still have guaranteed potable water, but in all seriousness, it's the major difference between getting through the aftermath of a natural disaster with ease and with great annoyance. No one likes having to queue for water! Fingers crossed the desalination plant will mean that most of Brisbane can keep drinking from the tap. Sadly, in some rural areas, it's a 3 minute boil for anything from the tap.

Meanwhile, for you lot up north with friends who have lost goods, a few helpful links:
~~Fairfax story on dealing with water-damaged electronics~~

drbunsen , who is a real-life techie rather than a journo playing one on the internet, says that you'd be better off following this advice. He's probably right, I only know about paper and textiles!
Good page on dealing with water-damaged documents
And for precious garments and textiles, a conservator's guide that contains many things the layperson can do