We interrupt normal programing to bring you this update from damp and muddy Brisbane. Brisbane's paradigmatic flood occurred in January 1974, when I was 12. A rain depression in the Brisbane River catchment combined with a king tide to inundate large areas of Brisbane. I remember going with my scout group to Rocklea in the days after it subsided and helping people clear out houses which had been completely submerged. The mud and the stench was terrible. Our house in Fairfield stood in about 2.5 metres of water in 1974, filling the downstairs part of the house and covering the floorboards upstairs. Our neighbours in low set houses were completely submerged. We didn't live there then, of course. When we bought the house in 1994 we checked out flood levels and were told that the building of Wivenhoe Dam lowered them by about 2 metres. Fast forward to 2010-11. The La Nina weather pattern dumped huge amounts of rain on Queensland and town after town went under. Rain po
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson