DECEMBER FLOODS

At this time when much of Queensland is experiencing widespread and severe flooding I would suggest that my new readers go to my archives and read my posts of October 2009, especially My Spring Garden 8 and 9 posts concerning the control of water flow.

I offer my sympathies to those in the cities who have had their homes flooded and to the many farming families who have lost firstly their winter crops which should have been harvested in the late spring and now their recently planted summer crops. While city folk have lost their homes and possessions and country folk have lost their income I am grateful that there has not been much loss of life.

For some time I have been commenting on weather cycles, mostly in the form of a rebuttal against the media’s portrayal in recent years of weather variations as being the result of man-made pollution. My generation of school children grew up quoting the words of Dorothea McKeller’s poem My Country. www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/archive.asp

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

My country has changed during my lifetime from a largely rural population to an urban based nation. During this period the population of my country has doubled, partly due to immigration. These new urban Australians have no ‘corporate’ knowledge of Australian weather conditions passed down through successive generations. They easily believe the media when told that world-wide man-made pollution is changing our climate.  They vote for laws that will regulate the behaviour of industries which constantly give more control to regional councils, State and Federal governments. In so doing, they frequently accept less responsibility for their own actions.

In recent years there was much publicity about what the media called The Drought of the Century. Although severe, this drought was not as disastrous as the Federation Drought a century earlier. That earlier drought had largely impacted on the rural population. Of course, the rural population once more had to cope with drought, but the greatest outcry that something must be done, came from the urban population. Cities have grown beside rivers and dams have been built upstream to provide water for industrial and domestic purposes. Gone were the days of a rainwater tank attached to each house, when the family shared bathwater, Mum washed the dishes in a basin and threw the water over the vegetable garden.

I moved to Queensland with my family as a young child and my first years in this State were drought stricken. I can remember my father hewing a wooden trough with an adz from a tree trunk. I can remember him going down an old well in a bucket to clear mud and debris to find a water flow. I then remember him hauling up buckets of water for his livestock. I also remember him cutting down and splitting open Bottle trees, climbing Kurrajong and Casuarina trees to lop branches, all to provide fodder for his starving cattle. I can still remember the weariness of this drought, but even better I can remember the steady soaking rain that followed and my father’s cry of exultation when he announced to our family, “The creek is coming down!”

Bottle trees beside the gate at the Bell Police Station

My father is now 95 years of age and like his father before him who lived to the age of 87, these men strove all their lives to earn a living from the land. Their memories of droughts and floods were frequently written down in detail, but while yarning they passed on this oral history to a younger generation. All my adult life I too have kept written weather records and have an understanding of weather patterns as they affect the portion of Australia in which I live.

Thus when we moved to this farm at Glen Aplin on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland eighteen years ago, I chatted with our neighbours about the floods they had seen in the district and then surveyed our land to consider what water conservation and drought minimization actions I should commence. I ensured that trees close to our home were removed to prevent damage from bushfires or storms. I grassed our watercourses and planted trees to prevent erosion from flood water. Earlier this year I had our entrance road built up and a culvert drain inserted to allow us dry access to our property during times of flooding rain.

Road works

Country people also know droughts are like a long and lingering death, painful and tedious to endure, but that all droughts end, usually with floods which in ten hours can cause more damage than a ten year drought.

Rocks around culvert

In June I had the assistance to two British girls, WWOOF members, to gather and position rocks around the road culvert. We then backfilled the crevices with soil and planted grass to bind the soil and rocks into place to prevent erosion when the rains came, as I knew they must.

The first truly wet year that I remember was 1956 when twice the annual average rainfall was recorded on my parent’s home property in the Dalby district. The average rainfall for the region was 27 inches, but that year Dad recorded 52 inches of rain.

In 1970 my then husband, Stewart McIver, and I purchased a house in Dalby. Stewart was born in Dalby so he too had  knowledge of the floods which could occur in this town. Although Dalby grew up as a settlement on the banks of the Myall Creek on the apparently flat plains of the Darling Downs, there are areas of the town which are a metre or two higher than others. We ensured that the house we bought was well above former flood levels.

When ten inches of rain fell on the Bunya Mountains in the wet year of 1983 and flooded the Myall Creek through Dalby our home was high and dry, whereas much of the town was devastated by flood waters. We did what we could for those who suffered loss, but dared not say we had taken the precaution of paying more to buy a property out of the flood zone. People did not accept that they had chosen to live in a area prone to flooding.

Now twenty-seven years later, the township of Dalby has been flooded again. Since the 1983 floods many of the lower homes that could be elevated above flood level were placed on high stumps, thus allowing the water to pass under them. But new homes were constructed in regions that are now flooded.

My readers will note that these floods I mention occurred in 1956, 1983 and 2010 each time a gap of 27 years. This week as towns across Queensland have flooded and record flood heights are broken the reports have stated that these have been the biggest floods since the 1950’s. I maintain that this is not due to Global Warming or man-made pollution, but due to a seasonal weather cycle that occurs every 25 to 30 years.

What is remarkably different from former wet years is the cost of these floods to the urban population. While farmers will lose their income for another year following successive years of low income due to drought, which will have the cumulative effect of forcing more families to give up farming, the large urban population have been inconvenienced and suffered immediate financial loss during their Christmas – New Year celebration period. It will be a sad Christmas season, long remembered.

Prior to white settlement in Australia these weather cycles existed and the country flooded, but the Aboriginal people were nomadic and merely moved into caves on higher ground in times of flood. Since that time settlements beside streams and rivers, which provided water and a means of transport, grew into towns and cities. Due to the population drift away from the land and into the cities, plus the urban growth due to migration, floods in these streams and rivers now have an enormous economic impact. Like hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans in the USA, it is often the poorest people in our communities who suffer the most. They are the ones who can only afford to buy the less expensive homes, or who live in rental accommodation, both of which tend to be located in the flood prone regions of cities and towns.

Yet, because historically Australia has always experienced cyclones and floods, our nation seems to be able to cope reasonably well. In 1983 I saw many of the people from low-lying homes in Dalby given temporary accommodation in the showground pavilion on the western side of the Myall Creek, or in the South Dalby State School (built high on stumps) on the opposite side. Once more another group of victims will be similarly accommodated in Dalby and in every other flood hit town across the state. Volunteer workers of organizations like the SES move into action quickly to assist the Police and Fire Brigade in times of flood or bushfires. If need be, such trained personal will come from Interstate. There seems to be relatively quick and organized communication.

I received a telephone call yesterday from my daughter Debra, who recently moved from Dalby to live in Mackay. Because she was still registered as a resident of Dalby, her mobile phone service had alerted her to the news that Dalby had introduced the highest level of water restrictions following the contamination of the towns water treatment works by flood water. The efficiency of the Dalby Town Council is to be admired.

Today is New Year’s Eve and this morning I had intended to begin a six hour drive to Roma to attend the wedding this evening of my niece Kellie Mulcahy, but due to the floods which have also innundated Roma, her wedding has had to be postponed for a week.

What will the New Year bring us in 2011? I expect more rain and more floods at least until Easter. It is during Autumn that the Pacific Ocean current which determines if eastern Australia will experience an El Nino or La Nina season fall into place. At the moment the Oscillation Index which measures this current is still high indicating a continuation of the La Nina weather pattern until Easter.

I wish all my readers  prosperity in the New Year, good health and happiness.

Wildflowers, wilderness and wine

My book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine may be obtained from http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary (if you live overseas) or from www.australia-book.com.au

I am also publishing chapter by chapter free for you to read my book The Forgotten Ones on http://fayhelwigauthor.com