Hi Jim,
Just to let you know, a TEOTWAWKI situation came to our town (Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia) two days ago. Toowoomba is known as the Garden City, and sits at the top of the Great Dividing Range, at 3,000 feet above sea level. After weeks of constant rainfall that soaked catchments of a drought stricken region, we received six inches of rain in an hour.
This deluge caused a flash flood (that has been since called an “Inland Tsunami”) that raged through the middle of Toowoomba. The speed of the flood took everyone by surprise and cars and people were swept away. Four people were drowned in the town. I helped two friends who narrowly escaped drowning when their car was washed away and overturned. A rope was thrown to them before they were washed away and another floating car hit them. We are now cut off in a city of 100,000 people, as Queensland faces the worst floods in its history. Our capital city, Brisbane, is now facing its worst floods in over a 100 years. The president of my local rifle club has heard his uncle and niece were drowned when the floods headed down the hill and washed away two other small villages. Currently death toll is 10 with 90 still missing from the two villages. It is truly horrific.
Here are a couple of links to videos and photos.
I crossed these waters further up the street in my 4WD Ute. The water was not flowing as fast where I crossed.
This next one is at a high point of town near the Grainco Wheat Silos.
Another video from down near Grand Central Myers. It all happened so fast – 30 minutes later this intersection was clear as you can see in the next video.
Here is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) news reports and videos.
Thankfully I have been a follower of SurvivalBlog and had made basic preparations. Our house was not affected by the flood. I immediately went to the shops to top up on supplies. Shops are now running low on food. The French Toast [milk and bread] Brigade had cleaned out the shelves the next day. Bottled water went on the first day. We are now in day three, following the flood event. My wife scoffed at me when I came home on the first afternoon. I can tell you the scoffing stopped the next day when she realised I was right.
We have people staying in our house who can’t go home because roads and bridges are destroyed. Thankfully we have supplies on hand to provide. Our church has swung into action helping various people. I am keeping a diary on the events and will forward a full story of events for you to publish soon.
Please keep us in your prayers. Kind Regards and God Bless, – W.J.
Hi Jim,
I ran across this article today on the continuing devastating flooding in Australia including video footage and details of people swamping grocery stores with bare shelves. Thought you might want to share it on the blog. Best wishes, – Steve C.