Today we in south east Queensland are suffering from the weather events as a result of Cyclone Debbie. No where near as much as those people in north Queensland. I so feel for them. It was such an extra ordinary nasty cyclone. I doubt anyone has seen anything so destructive in Queensland, as Debbie, the cyclone.
Cyclone Debbie?
I do have an issue with the naming of such cyclones. If you know a wonderful Debbie like I do, (in fact several!) you might wonder how using the name affects them in the future. I mean if your home/life etc was damaged as a result, what would you think every time you heard the name Debbie?
Surely there must be another way to create names for these events. How creative can we be. Cybash? Stormsplat? Damagaroo?
Cyclone Wanda
I live in South East Queensland, so we rarely see cyclones or such massive weather events like Cyclone Debbie down here, though I remember an event in 1974. Cyclone Wanda The cyclone itself didn’t do a great deal of damage, but it is what happens after a cyclone that is often more dramatic.
From Wikipedia “It had been an exceptionally wet spring, and by the end of October most of southern Queensland’s river systems were nearing capacity. Cyclone Wanda pushed the systems to the limit, and drew the monsoonal trough southward, providing the additional rainfall to the Brisbane River, Bremer River and Stanley River catchments to produce widespread and severe flooding. In the early morning of 25 January heavy rain began to fall on Brisbane. During a 36-hour period 642 mm of rain fell on the city.[15] These torrential rains were caused by Tropical Cyclone Wanda, a relatively weak cyclone which did not even rate as a category 1 cyclone.[16]“
We had not long moved to Brisbane, and knew nothing about cyclones. We had two children under 5 years of age, and had no idea what to expect. It was a scary time – the winds howled and I recall looking out the window at the trees blowing almost horizontal, and the rain. There were floods and we were cut off by flood waters. The roads in and out of the suburb were under water. There were a number of deaths, and houses damaged.
We have lived through several other weather events, but this one we are experiencing now is bigger and scarier than all the others.
Where I live now, Beachmere, just north of Brisbane, flooding is usually the major problem. It is by the sea and on the southern banks of the Caboolture River. High tides and heavy rain often cause major flooding. Usually, I stay home and avoid going out, but today I thought I would go and take some photos.
Getting the photos was not easy. It was raining heavily and each time I opened my car window it felt like someone threw in 3 buckets of water. It was not easy to stop as there was traffic on the road, and no safe spot to park the car.