When the levee breaks...

[Ray!]

..or not:

QUEENSLAND towns at risk of flooding are resisting levee banks and putting taxpayers at risk of another multibillion-dollar disaster bill.

Several towns including St George and Roma are baulking at building levees, partly because some residents believe they are unattractive and cause more flood damage by re-directing water, the Courier Mail reports.

http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2012/05/31/489525_latest-news.html

I find it amazing that there is resistance to levees, considering the huge cost that floods impose on towns. If people are unwilling to help themselves, then I don't see why taxpayers have to bail them out when disaster strikes, as eventually it will once again.

Cheers

Ray

[BigGQWesty]

I truly feel sorry for all the ppl who have gone threw the last 3 years and lost everything. But I think it should be mandatory when buying a house that you have insurance coverage..

I can't imagine being uninsured..

[Ray!]

I agree, but since the floods, insurance premiums have skyrocketed. For example, my sister-in-law who lives near Venus Bay, had her insurance premium increase from around $1000/year to $7000/year. She went elsewhere and I believe has a deal much closer to the original one. Now part of this may be gouging by the insurance company, but increases have happened everywhere. The same happened after the bushfires. Again, the bushfires would not have been like they were if proper maintenance had been undertaken by the DSE and councils and it is still severely lacking. So who bears the cost, the home owners.

Cheers

Ray

[BigGQWesty]

Agree with you on the brushfire front.. Why Vic councils don't do burn offs every 5 years is shocking..

After a good burn off everything comes back green and thus reducing risk further..

[Ray!]

Agree with you on the brushfire front.. Why Vic councils don't do burn offs every 5 years is shocking..

After a good burn off everything comes back green and thus reducing risk further..

It's all to do with the Greens, most Melbourne councils are controlled to a large extent by green philosophy. To them, burning ground fuel will cause irreparable damage to the ecology, but wildfires are OK. It's an insane philosphy in a country like Australia and until this attitude is changed, these events will keep recurring. That's pretty much what caused the Brisbane floods, the operators were scared to reslease water early, because of all the scare mongering saying that the rains will never fall again. They were in a situation of being 'damnded if you do, damned if you don't'.

Cheers

Ray

[Glort]

Agree with you on the brushfire front.. Why Vic councils don't do burn offs every 5 years is shocking..

After a good burn off everything comes back green and thus reducing risk further..

I used to be critical of people that built near the bush and had it growing to their back door but then my ignorance became enlightened.

I saw this at a place in surburbia that had a river and so called " national park" behind it which was more like a strip of bush on land that would not be suitable to build on. I found out that the residents every year had a working bee to clear the growth away from their back fences about 10M and do a bit of burning off into the bush beyond that as well. The local fire brigade even came along to assist and make sure nothing got out of hand. This had been going on for over 20 years.

Of course once all the green crap came along some do gooder councilor who moved into the greater area head about this and threw a hissy fit. The upshot was the local council ( who used to come along and take away what the neighbours cleaned up) go involved and sent out letters outlining fines and penalities for destroying national park, cutting trees without permits etc.

In the years before, they had basically endorsed and commended the neighbours for their work in looking after themselves and there had never been a problem with what they did.

The upshot now is after about 8 years the bush is now literally at these peoples back fences and growing thick and strong. If a fire ever dose come along which is really a matter of when not if, These homes are farked.

Before, the people had the good sense to recognise they did live in a high risk area and did something about it on their own initiative, now they live in fear if knowing when a fire does happen, they are stuffed.

If you ask me, the green washed idiots that stop them clearing the scrub ought to be nailed tot he back fence Jesus style when a fire does come along and see what their opinion is on clearing a fire break if the world is unfortunate enough for them to survive.

A close mate in another area is in exactly the same boat. He lives on top of a long high ridge that backs onto a strip of national park with the army firing range going for miles behind that.

The bush fire mob and the local fireys have told him due to wind direction, the way the ridge faces, the slope, type of trees and everything else, the place ticks all the right boxes for a holocaust.

He has had to go through all sorts of trouble to remove trees from his OWN property that pose a risk as certified by the local bush fire brigade and the local fire station commander not to mention getting neighbours to lop their trees which hang over his house on one side.

It was in fact only through being friends with the local fire commander ( another veg oil nut) that he was able to get the trees that posed a threat to his house taken down. He still wants to push the break between the house and the trees back a bit but the main dangers are now gone.

He has worked hard to clean all the crap off his own land so it's more like a grassed area with trees than the thick bush it was.

He's also taken a lot of trouble and expense to protect himself. He has put sprinklers on his roof and under his eaves and we set up an electric pump on a big UPS I got hold of with 4x N200 batteries. The pump draws from a 6000L tank beside the metal shed the pump and batteries are in that has it's own sprinklers aimed at the shed to keep it cool as lossible in the event of a fire.

He also has a petrol and a diesel fire fighting pump.

The petrol is on a trailer with an IBC and 2 36M hoses on reels another mate got for us from a building that was being upgraded.

The Diesel pump sits beside the pool with more hoses capeable of reaching any part of the house and beyond. It's quite impressive what these pumps can do and good fun to play with them as well.

I also have a diesel transfer and a diesel Fire fighter Pump which I always take to his place and leave them there for the summer along with a couple more hoses.

It all sounds a bit overkill and when everything is running and manned with the help of my mates sons, The amount of water you can put around is pretty impressive and inspires some confidence in the ability to deal with a fire.

The thing is if you ever see a bush fire up close and in real life, you realise that you can only increase the odds of saving your house, gauranteeing it is something else all together.

While my mate has done as much as he practically can to avoid getting burnt out and is still improving it, It's ironic to see the neighbours either side with much newer and more expensive homes are too lazy to even cut their yards back with a whipper snipper to offset their risk.

Insurance is a great thing but it can't replace everything nor can it minimise the danger to your family.