Hurricane Sandy

December 2010 to January 2011 - Brisbane and south-east QLD
35 confirmed deaths, $2.38 billion in damage
With over 200,000 people affected state-wide, the economic damage from this flood is estimated at $2.38 billion.
Beginning with rains in September and then culminating with Category 1 Cyclone Tasha crossing the Far North Queensland coast on 24 December, 2011, this is perhaps the most notorious flood in Australian history. In Brisbane, the river peaked at 4.46m on 13 January, flooding more than 28,000 homes and leaving 100,000 without power. Cyclone Yasi, which hit 3 Feburary, causing further damage to already sodden towns.

Australia's second largest city and regional towns - the event covered by Aus/NZ scheduled TV news programes for the first week of flood waters begining to receed but didn't get 9/11 type 24hr news cover as did Sandy.

 

As usual some one put it better than I did.

Does any one remember the floods of Northern Bangkok last year.

Still not got over it.

 

Anybody hear anything about Venice
apparently they are having high tide floodings as well

 

It's important to families who knew the men and women who lost their lives. It's important to millions affected by evacuations, property loss, power outage, business and financial loss, travel problems, and more. I watched substantially more coverage of the Japanese tsunami last year. TV news is a business. Coverage is proportional to viewers tuning in. We got some news shorts on the Thailand flooding that was documentary not around-the-clock coverage.

 

Thats right Manie we are all having the odd disaster but its not as important as an American disaster.

In the next month Phillappines will be getting quite a few, and Hong kong is at very high risk in December. Then they can wizz up again and cross to Hinan Island and even Vietnam Laos or Cambodia and even where I am in Thailand. Im not sure I could recite the American states but I know where I live and who lives next to me.

We could start a thread on Disasters but I dont think we could all keep up with it.

My condolences to NY residents but its what a lot of people have to put up with on a regular basis.

I saw some guys on Jet skis and kids playing in the wind, some using dinghys. I guess some enjoyed it.

Time to seek out some flood damaged Harleys

 

Not yet, but that was a ferocious southerly gale. The wost wind direction for the Adriatic because it blows water into the basin

The High winds were forecast in the area that boat design net contributor CDK lives.

I would expect trouble.

The wind scale on the chart shows greater than 30 meters per second. Hurricane force.

be interesting to see video footage taken from the gas drilling platforms off the Kornai Island archipelago.

Perhaps google web cams

 

Liberal media covers most what affects them most. Since they are mostly based in the New York-Washington or Pacific Coastal area, that gets the most coverage. Kentucky also got slammed by the blizzard but hardly a word was said. Most fictional TV shows are out of the same areas as if they were the centers of the universe. As far as those people are concerned anywhere else is just "fly-over" country. Blue states matter to them while red states don't.

 

This is a pretty serious situation all of you Yanks are in. My best wishes are to you and yours for everyones'safety. So sorry that so many innocents are lost. Just hang in there all. Mother Nature can be both beautiful and destructive and please all remember the old Aussie saying:- "She'll be right , mates". Good luck form Les the Aussie.

 

There's been a growing discussion on CNN about the failure of the NY hospitals auxiliary back ups due to fuel being contaminated and gensets being installed in basements.

In 1984 I was subcontract engineering on several inner city bldg projects to install back up auxiliary but in the elevator plant room at top level, the reason was all the building were along side Brisbane River with a history of once in 100yr big flood.

The building designers planned for the event including above ground fuel tanks in dedicated areas within the bldg footprint plus the brought in marine engineers to design/install marine grade pipe/pumps system.

Since completion these same bldgs have been flooded to second floor level so why didn't NY building planners consider the fact their basements were less than 600m from the Alantic Ocean/tidal rivers and below sea level.

With lessons learnt I guess the NY refurb will hopefully include marine engineers/consultants being involved in planning of facilities systems.

 

In general the infrastructure in the US is pretty wonky. Thunderstorm or snow storm and power is usually knocked off for a few hundred thousand people.

 

I believe current building codes in NYC prohibit above-ground storage of fuel inside a building - you can have the generators above ground just fine (and in many/most places they did), but the fuel tanks have to be in the basement. I know of at least a couple of buildings that are currently running their generators via bucket-brigade, as the fuel pumps failed.

 

Thank you watchkeeper, Manie and others for news of similar events elsewhere that we need to know about. I found that more useful than comparisons between American storm sewers and those in the far East.

While many eastern countries have experienced typhoons for thousands of years and have learned to cope, an event like Sandy - with a storm surge several times as great as Nilam - on heavily populated low-lying coastal cities in the far East would have killed hundreds of thousands.

Despite the anti-America rhetoric from some, it seems to me the Americans handled this a lot better than Katrina; they have clearly learned a lot and taken effective action in a short time - though more is needed. The US will recover from this without much foreign aid except for Canadian power grid workers; we do better with snowstorms. Americans will then resume providing assistance for countries that need it, and the same can be said for Australians. Perhaps soon the Chinese and Russians will take their rightful place alongside them.

Let me mention the Carribean where the toll was more severe. Aid programs are being set up. Aid programs don’t get much government help here: our small but much appreciated local aid program for a very poor Phillippines town that we have helped for years has finally ground to a halt under the weight of new government rules and procedures that exhausted our volunteers. Sigh!

 

I believe most of America still has above ground supply electricity cables. Even Thailand is presently putting them underground. Not round here yet but we are getting 4G or something to do with internet.

Below ground fuel supplies --well theres a bright idea--

I just read that New Yorks next problem is sewer rats being driven from the comfort of thier homes to higher more executive style dwellings. Se -La -Ve.

Never mind NY once you've gone though this a few times it comes easier. But to be honest you've coped very well for your first time.

 

Again some hard cold facts- Big news is big buisness, it generates viewer numbers which in turn generates station ratings and increased advertisement revenues with all the spinoffs in material purchase and jobs that entails. That my friends is capitalism at it's best, driving the world economy as we know it.Consumerism for better or worst is the driving force in todays modern world. Enhansed news like enhansed product advertising is to be expected and filtered. Also there's not much revenue generation and alot of expense gathering news from the far reaches of the world beyond one's countries borders. Again think Capitalism not intentional disregard. Very little Canadian news is reported in the U.S. while we in Canada are possible more informed about the U.S. than most U.S. citizens. We have the benifit of enhansed U.S. news,(crazy & exciting) filtered CBC rendrings(more realistic but more mundane) plus the bonus in some cases of the BBC.( "just the cold hard facts mam if you please") My viewing of the event from a news reporting point of view involved two stations--CBC and CNN. Both did a bang up job with CNN concentrating on ground zero and CBC the entire blast zone including an excellent report on the Bounty. Again another excellent example of the benifits of the private/state mix. Afterall if we all walked the same path, we'd wear it out.

 

Spot on. The media goes wild in the US. 24 hour news, talking heads....makes you wonder if the new generation of Americans, the ones who grew up under this intense media bombardment, can actually make a considered decision....should they even be allowed to vote ? or should major decisions be made by consulting TV , media program rating agencies ? Google hits ?

Lets not even go into FORIEGN POLICY considerations