How highs the water Mamma?

This post is coming to you from rain sodden and partially flooded Gympie

Please click on photos to enbiggen.

This is the view from my back porch taken with a 50mm lens (about the same as we see with the naked eye)

It looks a little more dramatic through a 300mm zoom lens, now the water shows up on both sides of the shed in the middle distance, this shed is 3 building blocks from my house and fortunately about 25 feet lower

The first business area to flood houses among other things a major telco office

The flood waters begin their relentless march up the main shopping precinct of town, in the 1999 flood the awning of the hotel on the corner was under water, so at this spot we can expect another 10 feet of water.

The low lying shops have been designed to be stripped completely bare before the inundation as stock and sales fittings are all removed.

These business people seem to accept the flood damage sometimes an annual event. although our last flood was in 1999 (Have I mentioned that 10 year drought before???)

Unlike most of the other towns and indeed areas that have made the news all over the world lately Gympie is quite hilly, this leads to deep floodwaters in the low lying spots and high and dry areas in the higher spots. The main shopping precinct is in fact the only place that has been rebuilt after each flood, surprisingly few homes are inundated simply because Gympie has been going through this for so long that almost all the most flood prone houses have been scrapped and as I mentioned before its not flat enough for the water to spread and lay for days, its usually drained away in a couple of days and life returns to normal quickly (except for those dumb shopkeepers who return time and again!!!)

This is where our last flood peaked, it will be interesting to see what we wake to tomorrow

This shopping centre has been built since the 1999 flood so it will be interesting also to see if they got it right here, the under store carpark, which is slate grey looks certain to get pretty wet but if the shops stay dry I guess they will call that a victory.

Gympie is on the national "Highway 1" which circumnavigates the country for an amazing 14,523 Kms, as has been the pattern for the last 100 years this highway is under water on both sides of town, one can't help but wonder (especially if one is a bit cynical about such things) just how much of the heartache that is about to befall Gympie and neighboring town of Maryborough might have been avoided had the "Green" population not prevented the building of the Traveston water storage Dam that had been planned for the Mary river????

The trucks that use the Bruce highway have been stuck near each of the places the highway has been cut.

Please join me in the fervent hope that my eye surgeon, who lives on the Sunshine Coast about 70 kms away does not get flood bound next thursday and can complete the cataract surgery I have scheduled for then.