Flooding In Australia: How Far Will It Spread?

Brisbane, Australia is an area touted for its incredible weather and is considered one of the major tourist hot spots in Australia .  Floods of January 10, 2011 overtook the city of Brisbane as the water came up and flooded the city leaving at least 19 people dead and at least 61 more people missing.  Twelve of the people killed were in the Toowoomba region.

The Lockyer Valley and Toowoomba regions which are located to the west of the city of Brisbane were engulfed by massive tsunami like flash floods and large portions of the city have been left in just puddles of mud.  The flooding was so damaging that an entire café could be seen floating down the Brisbane River .  The water damage in this region has been overwhelming to residents who are used to seeing very little rain much less this type of flooding and water damage.

Some areas of Brisbane are left looking like a war zone and the damage that spans the entire city also includes flooding of shops, restaurants, as many as 12,000 residential structures and over 100,000 places still without power.  The images that can be seen online show rooftops sticking out from the water as it peaked and truly show the complete devastation that was experienced in this region.  Many residents were using boats to make their way around town and look at the destruction.

The biggest concern lies in the fact that the danger still lies in the cyclones that are forming off the coast of Brisbane and so those in this incredible city are not in the clear yet.  Flooding issues in this region could continue for the next several weeks with their wet season ahead and many of the dams already overflowing things do not look promising.  And these issues are going to halt any reconstruction efforts for the time being.

There are so many concerns on behalf of government officials in this portion of the Queensland and they are trying to do what they can to address all of the issues that residents face but there is only so much that can be accomplished in light of the impending storms to come.  Unfortunately there are many crisis’ occurring throughout the region due to the flooding one of the biggest being the shortage of drinking water for residents in the Queensland due to damaged water treatment plants in the Lockyer Valley region.