The storm was indiscriminate, though, and hit both sides of the escarpment. On the east side, the slope is very steep in places, and the flood was able to gather phenomenal power as it headed into the Lockyer Valley.
Best article I've seen yet:
At the same time, a rainstorm of equal ferocity on the eastern slopes of the range was falling on to already saturated ground. Water from every gully joined up and multiplied in power as it raced down the escarpment. Quarries filled and burst, sodden hillsides slumped in landslide, rivers formed on railway lines and cascaded down roadways until a wall of death witnesses say was up to 8m high was unleashed upon a string of settlements without warning.
It's estimated that up to 7.5 billion tonnes of water - 15 Sydney Harbours, if that can be imagined - crashed on to southeast Queensland during this week's superstorm.
...It simply overwhelmed water courses, sweeping over paddocks and leaving an indiscriminate swath of destruction.
...At 12.30pm, 30 minutes after the downpour high on the ridge above, the Matthews family was sheltering from the rain on McCormack Drive, Spring Bluff, unaware of the torrent that was about to blow apart their small cottage with its big, covered veranda, outdoor gym and above-ground swimming pool overlooking a stream that had never been more than a trickling brook.
A wall of water blew away the front and back walls of the cottage, sweeping childhood sweethearts Steven and Sandra Matthews into the torrent and their deaths. The water did not come down the creek line. It surged down a roadway from above. The Matthews's children, Sam, 20, and Victoria, 15, survived by sheltering in the roof cavity. Matthew's apprenticeship with his father saved his life. "We are electricians," Sam says. "Dad and I spent half our lives in roof cavities. I went for higher ground."
..."Our front yard was a river. I am surprised we are still alive."
"There was so much water," Victoria adds. " I couldn't even tell what direction it was coming from."
From Spring Bluff, water rushed east, sweeping all before it and crashing through Murphys Creek, a settlement of 500 people, at about 2pm. The surge of water exploded down the hill, undercutting the roadway and sweeping the landscape.
...Hoddinott was at home with her daughter Sophie watching in disbelief as the creek filled and raced towards them. She said the pair had only 10 minutes to collect their thoughts and belongings and flee to higher ground. When the water had passed, Hoddinott says, their house had escaped by centimetres. From the air, the path of destruction at Murphys Creek appears indiscriminate. In truth, the surge of water had been so strong it could not be contained within the established river course. As a result, some homes near the river had been left unscathed while others were blown apart.
From Murphys Creek, floodwaters flowed to Postmans Ridge. "The water came 5m deep; it slammed my place and shook my place, and about five minutes later the rest of the water came down the creek and swamped us," says Postmans Ridge resident Rod Alford.
He watched a wall of water higher than the roof smash into the home of his neighbour, Sylvia Baillie, washing her away and removing everything but the concrete slab on which the house had been built. "It hit it so hard the house exploded," he says. "They found her car 750m away. It had been parked on her front lawn. We saw her go. We know she is dead but they have got to find the body to confirm it."
Alford says the amount of damage to the town is extraordinary, houses demolished, others unlivable. "This was a babbling brook surrounded with trees and look at it. I had magical gardens down there, horse stables and yards. It's all gone."
...Wood says Armageddon is the closest he can come to describing it. "I've never seen anything like it," he told the ABC, "and I never want to see anything like it again. We thought we were going to die."
...Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said Wivenhoe Dam's ability to release water gradually to prevent flooding had been swamped. "The dam is full. Every bit of rain that falls on the catchment can get to Brisbane, and there is not much more we can do about that. They now have to discharge that water because more is on the way. Unfortunately, the big shock absorber that is that dam is now full."
Wivenhoe had hit 191 per cent capacity by using overflow storages. The Somerset Dam behind it was full as well. Water was being disgorged into the Brisbane River through five spill gates, each cascade producing a rooster-tail plume of water. By Tuesday, Wivenhoe was spilling water into the river at a rate of 645,000 megalitres a day, everyone knowing it would have to be cut back in coming days as water flowed into the river, below the dam wall, from the Lockyer River and Bremer River, which cuts through Ipswich.
It is believed the Wivenhoe Dam came within 90cm of blowing "a fuse plug", which would have crumbled an emergency spill wall and released a wave of water with devastating consequences for Brisbane.
No comments:
Post a Comment