Aftermath

[Dallas]

The missus and I took a drive down to the beachfront this morning to see what it looks like after the floods. These are from my iPhone played with a little in Lr. 

 

I thought I had experienced the worst of weather conditions for this region before. I wasn't even close. This is the worst flooding we've had in living memory. And it's not done yet. More heavy rain predicted for tonight.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dallas]

A friend and I took a bicycle ride along a mostly deserted promenade yesterday afternoon and went back to the spot I took the first set of photos from last weekend. City workers and volunteers have cleaned up a lot of the plastic jetsam but there is still quite a lot left behind. 

 

 

 

And some enterprising "artist" trying to make a buck installed this stuff. The sign I accidentally cut off (stupid iPhone) says "No Money, No Picture". We didn't pay. 

 

[Hugh_3170]

Hi Dallas - you folks seem to be getting the same extraordinary weather patterns that have affected many of Australia's Queensland and Northern New South Wales coastal areas.  About a year ago you guys were really short of water.  Stay safe.

[Dallas]

Thanks Hugh. The weather is very perplexing. This month is usually when we can feel that things are changing from summer to autumn and it certainly was like that at the time of these devastating floods, but then this past week one day it's warm again and the next it's getting back to jeans weather.

 

My brother lives in Gympie in Queensland and they also had some horrific floods about a month or 2 ago. I think large parts of the town were underwater. They were fortunately OK. Our floods were a bit different. Because this region is mostly very hilly the main damage was erosion which led to mudslides and infrastructural damage. Some places in the southern part of the city are still without water more than 2 weeks later. There wasn't a lot of standing water, except for places where the storm water drainage simply couldn't cope. Another issue that we have is that some people here like to throw their garbage into the drains, so naturally this clogs everything up and the results are evident on the amount of litter that washes up on the beach. 

[GB111]

Looks a little like California beaches, as they also get a lot of seaweed, sticks, etc.  Strange blue tint that I'm not sure I'm fond of, though it does give the images an unusual look.

 

Does this mean the S. African drought is over? Or perhaps that was just certain parts of the country.

 

 

[Dallas]

1 hour ago, GB111 said:

Looks a little like California beaches, as they also get a lot of seaweed, sticks, etc.  Strange blue tint that I'm not sure I'm fond of, though it does give the images an unusual look.

 

Does this mean the S. African drought is over? Or perhaps that was just certain parts of the country.

 

 

 

The tint is something from one of the “look” plugins I have, can’t remember which one.

 

The drought was over a few years ago. This flooding was caused by a cut off low pressure system that caused 5 days of solid rain over the city, with more than 300mm falling on 11 April alone. The ground just couldn’t cope with it and apart from water pooling in the low lying areas, erosion and mudslides were the most damaging. Over 400 people died and there are still many missing, presumed washed out to sea. 

 

The jetsam on the beach is mostly branches from trees upriver and of course plastic waste that people couldn’t be bothered to dispose of correctly. 

[blurmagic]

Not surprised to see the "plastic jetsam" had washed up on shore in such large quantities.  

 

My wife is "nuts" about recycling everything, including plastics.  She doesn't know that very little of it gets reprocessed here in the USA.  Most gets loaded on large ships and is transported to the Vietnam area where unscrupulous companies are paid to process the plastics.   Being that processing plastics costs more than it's worth, much of it gets clandestinely hauled out to sea and just dumped into the ocean.   I contend it's better to just bury one's used plastics (with the other garbage) near where you live; that way it does not pollute the oceans.

 

I truly believe that the majority of mankinds problems are caused by greed. 

Edited 13 May, 2022 by blurmagic

[Dallas]

The evil of mankind is evident everywhere, especially in leadership. 

[crowecg]

I've heard that the market for recyclable materials is so bad at times that it is often just landfilled anyway.  It doesn't help that people can't bring themselves to sort their waste properly.  One thing that has really annoyed me is dog walkers dumping their dog mess in any nearby bin - I've found them wandering up my driveway and dumping it in the recycling or garden waste bins.

[Dallas]

That would really irk me, Chris. It's one of the things we don't have happen here because you can't just walk up to somebody's door here. All the properties are surrounded by high walls, sometimes with electric fencing. 

[Hugh_3170]

On 14/05/2022 at 15:26, Dallas said:

The evil of mankind is evident everywhere, especially in leadership. 

Australia is in the midst of its 2022 Federal (or is it its feral? LOL) election, and the dearth of leadership is ever so apparent.  No one is genuinely electable in the sense of being well suited to do the job.  So electors are forced to pick the least worst voting options.  Sad and crazy stuff.