Flood Update

Well, the rain has stopped for a little while, though there's a reasonable chance we'll get some more today.  304mm so far, in a span of about 36 hours!  It's stuff like this that really screws-up the averages.

The N2 (national road) is/was blocked in at least two places nearby.  Over 1000 people have had to be airlifted to safety.  More rain forecast for Monday.

Our road is very badly damaged, but people seem to be getting in and out.  Several people in the neighbourhood have been asking the district roads people to fix the culvert for a long time, now, to no avail.  My guess is that they'll get around to fixing it just in time for the next floods!

A Rain Of Fish

One of my very first posts when I started this blog was about a Big Rain – the Floods of '06, a little over a year ago. Well, brace yourself for The Sequel!

After a drizzly day, yesterday, the heavens opened in the late afternoon, and have not yet shut. At about 8 this morning the rain-guage was showing a guesstimated 102mm overnight.  The scale ends at 100mm. All the dams in the area are overflowing with ummm...  interesting... results for the roads.  I think we'll be unable to get to town for a while, even after the rain stops.  And it's showing no signs of letting-up yet.

There's a river down the middle of the veggie garden, since the small dam beside the house overflows that way.  No serious harm to anything, though, since it was designed and the earth carefully shaped to channel the overflow between veg beds.  It's only the odd mole-tunnels that can cause some small washouts.  Pity the poor Moles, though.

In other parts of the region people are being helicoptered to safety. We're pretty safe; just helicopter in some Scotch and we'll be fine for quite awhile ;-)

Many more pics at Photobucket for the interested. Including the Rain of Fish.  (A bunch of freshly-dead fish lying around where they've been washed out of some dam or other. Great amusement and yummies for the Dogs!)  Sadly Photobucket seems to lack any way of putting the pictures in any kind of sensible order... :-(

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Congratulations to Kevin and Becky, and a big Welcome to Owen! We wish you much happiness, learning and fun!

It rained, and it rained, and it rained.

And the Piglets are entirely surrounded by water.

Checking the rain-gauge brought only heartbreak.  >100mm is all I can record.  The chicken-run is a river; all the neighbourhood dams are overflowing in torrents.  I guess the water-tanks are full, but I'll be buggered if I'm going out in the rain again to check.  The veggie garden is awash, though coping quite well - I did not see any serious damage, despite the dam near the house overflowing through the veggie garden.  It was quite carefully designed so that the overflow goes through the middle where I planted only permanent herbs, avoiding any of the veggie beds.

The road out is flooded - local farmers are tractoring out the cars of people foolish enough to attempt the crossing.  And here's me without a supply of Scotch laid in :-O