Flood of questions
JOHN O’brien’s timeless piece: “We’ll all be rooned, said Hanrahan, in accents most forlorn, outside the church, ere mass began, one frosty Sunday morn,” sprung to mind as Mother God unleashed its flooding fury.
Its prolonged monsoonal drenching perhaps overreacted to communities’ collective prayers as it always does … eventually.
As one of its victims this time in a rare bout of self-inflicted self-immolation, having bought an old townhouse in Rosslea’s famous Hodel Street, it would seem I have over dared the weather gods who control the “floodgates” to open them. They have obliged, dumping lots of water into my old downstairs faithful.
The vicissitudes of life throw up that intangible element that challenges the inner resolve to fight back, the severity this time around will surely apply the upper levels of the elastic limit for so many of the pilloried.
The Bulletin’s page one (8/2) has flagged the predictable flooding review planned by this Palaszczuk government, given the massive devastation exacted on commercial and residential new Townsville housing estates/suburbs.
The question awaiting serious but honest answers is how these developments and entire suburbs were given a “green light” squatting on flood-prone areas literally poking their collective tongues at the monsoonal gods.
While this monsoonal drenching has been unusually prolonged colliding with historical record rain falls in Ross River catchment areas, were developers’ approvals working in tandem with council on these affected new suburbs getting the nod using this climate change modelling?
Local Government Association CEO Greg Hallam allegedly is reported to have bellowed “we’re not God, and only source information based on science and good knowledge.”
Well, from outside my war zone old townhouse in Townsville in Rosslea but more specifically the new golf course club residential estate, it would seem climate change science computer models have collid- ed with a dose of Aristotle logic and bingo – one plus one still equals two, as it always will.
Models are simply, well models, as the progressive Millennials with whom I share this terrible daily torment will come to understand as they process this dastardly catastrophe, as well as mitigation dams do have their limits, you know.
The next time some climate change devotee or guru trots out their climate change modelling, just refer them to the 2019 Townsville once-in-a 100 years floods, and soon to be 200 then maybe. Who knows? Or zero in on the Townsville 1946 floods perhaps, just to put a handbrake on this unbridled toxic exuberance and the empty feelings that accompa- ny the acceptance of peddled false hopes once they dawn.
Bouquets to our wonderful SES, military, police and the so many never cited unsung heroes, community volunteers who actually put their lives on the line in a display of yesteryear egalitarianism daubed in the Anzac spirit.
The corporate good citizenry response of my contents insurance provider RACQ has been more than exemplary, so thank you, and Telstra/foxtel ditto. But special brickbats to those politicians and wannabe politicians who have used this dreadful catastrophe to promote a political bent; eternal shame. You know who you are, and so do I.