Amazing Australian Flood Video

[ARCHINSTL]

http://tv.gawker.com/5730099/watch-this ... arking-lot
The parking lot is cleared in less than six minutes. Again demonstrates the power of water and the futility (and danger) of attempting to ford a flooded, flowing, road. The rapidity of the rise is astounding.
This takes place in Toowoomba, Queensland.
Tom M.

[takza]

Bet those people wished they had gotten off their duffs and moved them? They had a few minutes at least...but it's all water down the stream now...

[dlb]

wow. i wonder what the story is as to why those cars got left there.

australia has had sh*t luck for a while now. what did they have, 7 straight years of crippling drought? and now truly disastrous flooding. their economy will surely be hooped for many years to come.

[ARCHINSTL]

One of the later comments to the piece was from someone from Toowoomba; it is a Greyhound parking lot that is used by people who then take a bus into "the city proper," so were not around to move the cars.
Tom M.

[dlb]

i can't believe you just said toowoomba. i have a buddy who played baseball for the toowoomba rangers (i think that's what they were called) a few years ago so i've always asked every australian i've met if they've ever heard of the place but NONE OF THEM HAVE. no, one did actually, and he couldn't believe i had heard of it.

[ARCHINSTL]

so i've always asked every australian i've met if they've ever heard of the place but NONE OF THEM HAVE. no, one did actually, and he couldn't believe i had heard of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toowoomba
I guess there are Australians as unaware of their country's geography as there are Americans/Canadians unaware of theirs...
Toowoomba is 80 miles West of Brisbane, has 128K people, and is Australia's 15th largest city.
Like Americans having never heard of Austin, TX, or Canadians being clueless of Victoria, BC.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763098.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_th ... _in_Canada
I'd heard of Toowoomba before, but cannot remember where.
Tom M.

[Petros]

An amazing video clip. It is certainly not an "outback" location, it looks like a high density population area. Very usual for such a high density area of relatively new construction to not have better flood control facilities.

I wonder where all the cars that floated away ended up. It was especially scary seeing the car pop out from under the bridge from somewhere up stream.

[danzo]

Like Americans having never heard of Austin, TX,

I'm assuming you're referring to Austin, Mexico. The ultimate form of irony is the guy moving his snorkel-equipped Landcruiser (?) in a torrential flood while holding an umbrella. Hope nobody on our forum had to suffer through this.

[ARCHINSTL]

? on Austin, Mexico? I'd think Stephen Austin's name would be pretty anathema in Mexico.

That video has apparently gone viral since I posted it yesterday morning. Since then I've received links to it from 5 friends around the world - and I ain't got many friends!
Apparently the flood has passed Toowoomba and is now in Brisbane, flooding virtually the entire city of about 2 million - OZ's third largest city.
Tom M.

[MootsMan]

Very reminiscent of the flooding we had here around Nashville and in middle TN last May. I talked with one of the doctors at work today who's house was flooded.....he had literally closed on buying the house less than 48 hours before the flood struck, luckily had not moved a bunch of stuff into it yet. He'd checked with geological survey, various governmental agencies, etc. to determine his flood risk exposure, and determined that he was well out of the 500-year flood plain. The river at his house ultimately crested about 6-8' above that point. Here at my place, we had a 100-year event on Saturday morning, then the 1000-year event on Sunday morning. Luckily we didn't lose anything, but my neighbor just up the creek had 7.5' of water in his house. This view is from my front porch.....if you look closely, you'll see the drive circling from in front of my Terc, going between the spruce and magnolia trees. The driveway at that point was under about 2-3' of water, we had already moved the Tahoe up to higher ground, but was too late to get any of the other vehicles moved. The taller trees out past the spruce tree are on the bank over the creek bottom, and then the main channel of the creek is across the open expanse of water, past the row of trees you can make out just before the ridge. It's about 150-175 yards from my porch over to the creek. Water at this point in the main channel of the creek was probably 20-23' deep, and finally crested at around 25'. My thoughts and prayers are with the folks in Australia.....I truly know what they are going through.