Engineering standards

[Wayne Lomman]

While North America has been freezing, and southern Australia has been burning, spare a thought for Townsville in North Queensland. They have had more than their annual average rainfall in less than a week with much of the city inundated. What has this to do with engineering? The Ross River Dam which is above the city has peaked at 245% capacity and it has not failed. This is why engineers build structures to survive 1 in 100 year disasters. Cheers

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I was reading about Townsville and the dam today. I had to go to Googlemaps to find out it is located about 150 miles south of Cairns.

[Jim Becker]

My good friend Ruth is in Townsville and has been documenting the flooding daily on FB/Twitter and her photos were also picked up by local press. All I can say is "wow"...that's a lot of water!

[Dave Richards]

I have a friend, Andrew, in Townsville. Fortunately he and his family are OK but it is a big disaster there.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

My community suffered 13 inches of rain in as many hours last August 31. Just over 30 homes destroyed, in excess of another 40 seriously damaged. The cost to fix the washed out bridges and roads, 7.1 million dollars in a community of just 6,000 residents. Our roads budget is tapped out and with some state and federal help, we may have the roads and bridges back by 2022. Some residents were caught on roads between washouts and had to walk in and out for over two weeks. My neighbors and I have begun plowing the snow off the road because there is no government money to do so. Mother nature can be a fickle one.

[John K Jordan]

Creeker Richard Casey is in Townsville. I sent him an email.

JKJ

[Chris Parks]

My good friend Ruth is in Townsville and has been documenting the flooding daily on FB/Twitter and her photos were also picked up by local press. All I can say is "wow"...that's a lot of water!

Complete with at least one Crocodile taking up residence and a LOT of snakes which all bite. My daughter wants to buy a house in Cairns but she can't inspect it due to the flood waters, I am going to recommend physchiatric care for her.

[Jim Becker]

Yea, my friend has a lot of snake-friends who visit her...most are not tiny, either. LOL

[Wayne Lomman]

Perry, it is interesting to hear about how disasters are managed in different cultures. Townsville, as with any community in Australia, has its own funding but this is backed up by state and federal disaster funding that is entirely separate from everyday road maintenance budgets. On top of this, everyone in the country is able to make a donation to the recovery at any bank, post office or supermarket. At present it is a 'pick your disaster' with the drought in Western NSW & Queensland, bushfires in Tasmania and Victoria and floods in Townsville.

On the subject of bushfires, I was only just made aware that the way fire fighting aircraft and other resources are shared is a quite formal arrangement between California and Australia as the fire seasons are at different times. Well, they were at different times. Our bushfires are now starting earlier and California's are running later. The fire seasons in both hemispheres are overlapping now. Cheers

[Chris Parks]

The Townsville disaster will be rectified very quickly due to looming elections and politicians wanting to get re-elected, there is nothing like an election to motivate a politician. Wayne is correct, all levels of government in Oz have access to disaster relief funds and insurance companies are very loudly reminded by the government that they had better get their act together and not deny any claims. My apologies for being OT.

[John K Jordan]

While North America has been freezing, and southern Australia has been burning, spare a thought for Townsville in North Queensland. They have had more than their annual average rainfall in less than a week with much of the city inundated. What has this to do with engineering? The Ross River Dam which is above the city has peaked at 245% capacity and it has not failed. This is why engineers build structures to survive 1 in 100 year disasters. Cheers

I wrote to Creeker Richard Casey in Townsville and he is ok, but those downstream are not. Massive evacuations starting 1/2 mile downstream from his place. Only reported deaths so far were two liquor store looters who ran from the police into the flood water.

Richard said they opened the flood gates wide last night at 8:30 to save the dam. The power was out long enough to spoil all the refrigerated food so they are living on cyclone rations. He sent a number of pictures.

This walking bridge is gone now.
402880

This bike path is now under 1.8M/ 6 foot of water:
402881

JKJ

[Chris Parks]

The unique thing about this dam is the area holding the water is very flat for the purpose and small rise in height equals a very large spread in area covered by water. Normal dams are situated in very steep valleys or river courses to overcome this exact issue. I guess this has been it's saving grace in a way.

[Nicholas Lawrence]

Spent a week in Townsville many years ago. The people were kind and welcoming, and we very much enjoyed our time there. Little nature preserve not far away if memory serves.

If there is anything we can do Chris, please post. We send plenty of money around the world to people who hate us. I could certainly spare a buck or two for our friends.

[Chris Parks]

Thanks for the kind offer Nicholas, I am very lucky to be many thousands of kilometres away from Townsville. There doesn't seem to be any immediate relief being sought apart from government efforts at the moment.

https://www.google.com.au/search?client=opera&q=townsville+flood+relief&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

[Ole Anderson]

Actually dams are built to survive during flooding far exceeding a 1% chance of occurrence in any year (typically known as a 100 year event). A flood flow that might result from something on the order of two to three times the "100 year" rainfall. A maximum probable rainfall (the exact terminology escapes me) is determined for the region based on historical records for over a hundred years. Those records might be rainfall or stream flow records. That is why most dams have an emergency spillway that may never see use in their lifetime. Of course that was not always the standard and very old or unregulated dams exist which can be prone to failure. Also failure can also be the result of many other factors including engineering errors, unforeseen soil conditions and so forth.

[Wayne Lomman]

Just to update the response to the north Queensland flood disaster, the event has been upgraded to a Category D catastrophe which means the federal government will provide grants up to $75000 for clean up and recovery for individual households, businesses and farms, and $100m as a start for infrastructure rebuilding. Many of the farmers in the region have gone from years of drought only to lose their remaining livestock in these floods. Cheers

[Tim Bueler]

Many of the farmers in the region have gone from years of drought only to lose their remaining livestock in these floods.

My heart goes out to those farmers! In 1975 the little dairy farming community where I was raised suffered a devastating loss from a washed out flood gate during a 100 yr flood event. Dozens of dairies were under water within minutes. Dairy cow losses numbered in the thousands. The Army Corps of Engineers was called in to assist with cleanup and I can still remember, like it was yesterday, seeing the military trucks driving through town piled high with bloated, rotting dairy cows. My family's farm was spared but we all cried for those who weren't so lucky.

[Jim Becker]

I watched a video overflight of Townsville yesterday...wow. Just wow. While my friend's place is high enough that the water hasn't encroached her home, the same cannot be said for so many folks. Devastation. I'm glad to hear there will be financial help for folks to recover.