Australia braces for ‘the wet’

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This article was published 19/03/2010 (6002 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Australia’s north eastcoast will have an anxious weekend as cyclones spinning their way across the Pacific Ocean threaten to converge in what some fear may be the perfect storm.

Hundreds of people were being evacuated from resort islands off the northern state of Queensland Wednesday night as communities braced for the arrival of Tropical Cyclone Ului.

By late Wednesday, as many as 130,000 people had been affected by another cyclone, Tomas, in Fiji, while a further 5,000 were struggling with the aftermath of Cyclone Ului in the Solomon Islands.

Both cyclones struck almost simultaneously last Monday, causing widespread destruction and prompting an international aid response spearheaded by UNICEF Pacific.

Communication with islands such as Vanua Levu, Taveuni and Cikobia were cut as officials attempted to conduct aerial surveys to assess the extent of damage.

An estimated 17,000 people were at 240 evacuation centres around Fiji with hundreds of homes reported to be destroyed.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said military aircraft were departing Australia for Fiji while further assistance for reconstruction would be considered once damage had been more fully assessed.

New Zealand was also sending aid, including a Hercules plane carrying tarpaulins, water containers and water purification tablets.

In Queensland, where thousands of sodden locals have witnessed one-in-a-hundred year rain falls, there is a growing fear “we’re next.”

Queenslanders over the age of 45 have vivid memories of a “wet season” that began with heavy raindrops splashing down on corrugated iron roofs every year some time in late November.

The rain came and went, but it rarely allowed more than two or three sunny days in succession until March, creating a not entirely unattractive lifestyle, especially for farming families.

Unable to work the land, the “wet” was spent holidaying or confined to sheds where strange and not entirely practical feats of mechanical engineering were created to help while away the drizzling afternoons.

The last few months appear to have heralded a return of the “wet” that has been gone so long even the local wildlife appear to have been taken by surprise.

In the past few months, animal caregivers from across the region have looked after around 400 possums, 138 kangaroos and 680 birds.

Eleanor Pollock from North Queensland Wildlife Care told the national broadcaster the ABC much of the pressure was coming from the wet weather.

“Animals are getting wet, their nests are getting washed out of trees, possums are getting separated,” she said.

Beyond animal welfare, the return of the wet has a more sinister undercurrent for those who remember the ferocity of the tropical cyclone.

Until the Victorian bush fires of February 2009, Australians regarded the cyclone as nature’s most lethal weapon.

Cyclone Tracy all but destroyed the Northern Territory city of Darwin on Christmas Eve 1974, killing more than 70 people.

Tracy was one of the most powerful storms on record in Australian history, causing nearly $1 billion in damage.

Thousands of families lost homes and it took nearly a decade before the city was able to put the trauma of the devastation behind it.

Tropical Cyclone Larry reminded Australians of the power of the tropical storm when it hit the small North Queensland town of Innisfail in March 2006, causing massive physical damage but no loss of life.

The Brisbane-based newspaper The Courier Mail had satellite images of both Ului and Tomas swirling across Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands last Wednesday with the heading “Two Reasons To Be Prepared.”

The Australian Life-Saving Championships on the Gold Coast were taken by surprise as waves up to four metres high sent boat crews sprawling into the surf.

Weather bureau spokesman Ben Annells said Ului, which posed the biggest threat, could either weaken or re-intensify before it hit the coast, probably sometime this weekend.

“Basically our consensus track is for the cyclone to approach Queensland coast — particularly the central old coast during the weekend.”

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, with some understatement, said all evacuations and preparations were just precautions.

“Cyclones by their very nature are very unpredictable weather patterns.”

Michael Madigan is the Australian correspondent for the Free Press.