Elizabeth Street flood. 1928.

We have had a fair bit of rain in the last few days. I have put in this extra post today as there is not any point saving it until tomorrow. Melbourne weather being what it is, there is every chance it will be bright and sunny, regardless of the forecast, causing a rainy day article to be entirely inappropriate!

The Herald-Sun newspaper website has a few photos of inappropriately attired office workers caught in the rising waters on Wednesday on the corner of Williams and Lonsdale streets. This article is from 1928 with a photo of the floodwaters in Elizabeth Street, just a few blocks from there. The skyline is very different these days!

The caption reads: This photograph, taken during a flash of lightning from the steps of ”The Argus’ office, shows the flooded state of Elizabeth street at the height of the storm. The tramcar could not proceed owing to the flood water.

The Argus 20 Jan 1928 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3905045

Rolling coverage.

     Today we heard the terrible news of the earthquake in Christchurch in New Zealand. Awful stuff. I had been listening to the news on the radio and later turned on the telly to get an update. I didn’t have to look far to find some news as every channel was running whatever they could get. That is something I hate about the coverage of a natural disaster. It is everywhere on every channel and you can’t get away from it. I know that it is important to get out information and that in this day and age people expect to know everything RIGHT NOW! The problem with this is that you never get to turn off. I think that this kind of thing began in Australia with Stuart Diver and his rescue from a landslide at Thredbo in 1997. We all watched with bated breath as he was slowly extricated from a collapsed ski lodge. We didn’t know that this sort of coverage would become a tool used during every disaster from then on. 

     The Black Saturday fires and aftermath here in Victoria in 2009 was on TV for weeks as was the flooding in Queensland recently. The problem with this is that the more you are told of how terrible it is the more it gets in your head. I choose to turn it off but it doesn’t take much viewing  for kids to be affected. During the fires in 2009 we evacuated as it was a little too close for comfort. I kept the TV off as the kids were already worried enough as they were aware of how close it was and every time they saw a TV they were told to be even more worried. We have been through a time of fires in this area years ago, before rolling coverage and mobile phones. Then the attitude was less of panic and more of ‘how can we sort this out?’ Now any perilous situation is constantly reinforced with the tragedies and worst case scenarios of the day updated hourly.

     I really noticed how TV coverage affected the kids during the QLD floods when we were caught in a huge downpour one night on the way home from a friends house. There were swathes of water across the roads and branches down everywhere. I was driving throught the water slowly (as my Ford can stall at the sight of a wet tissue and I didn’t want us to have to walk home) and the kids were freaking out. Normally they would have been shrieking with laughter at floods and mud as they do when we are out in the bush in the 4WD but this time they were truly afraid. You can blame the images of cars being swept away and smashed into trees seen on TV in previous days. A few weeks later we were driving in even worse conditions and they were delighted. It was just because the TV had told them to be afraid that they had such a reaction at the time.

     If these things were only aired on one channel it would be easier to avoid but every channel runs constantly, vying for the most graphic footage. When the vision of an injured and unconcious (I hope) child being pulled from under fallen blocks was aired without warning today I wasn’t the only one upset by it. The desk announcer was clearly affected too. How many small kids were at home and seeing this unexpected and distressing sight? Tonight I will be keeping the TV off and keeping the little lives in my house free of the fear of an earthquake that they can do nothing about and just be thankful that it is not our town on the TV. This time.

Too much water.

     It’s been raining. We have seen flooding and at times wished for boats to get about in. Nevertheless I can’t stand to see this water flowing without being used constructively and I’m not the only one. Years of drought have so skewed the way we use water that any time we see water in the wild and doing its own thing we feel like we have to gather it up and save it for later. When we were nearly flooded recently I found myself thinking ‘I should get a bucket and scoop some of that up’. The plants I would use the water on were completely drowned . The streets were awash. Shops were flooded. Rivers bursting their banks. Yet here I was thinking that one bucket of water saved for later would help…

     When we were kids a hot summer day meant the sprinkler on the lawn.  Now if you turn on the hose you expect the water police to tap you on the shoulder. I remember the summer when everyone wanted a Slip-and-Slide for xmas. Santa didn’t come through for us but our Pop made us one with an immense length of plastic and a soaker hose. We turned the garden into a muddy mess and I still remember how much fun we had.

     No wonder the lawns in my childhood memory were so much greener. We would play under the sprinkler all day and then the dads in the street would come home from work and get out there with the hose and water their gardens for an hour to wind down from work . None of that anymore. In our garden, plants get planted and when they die we just look for something a bit tougher to fill the hole with next time. The only things that get extra care around here are the vegies and only then if they put in a bit of effort themselves.

     Our lawn is usually a greenish patch of grass-like substance outside the back door. At the moment you could almost call it lawn as it has spent a considerable amount of time recently under ankle deep water and looks all the better for it. Maybe I should install a ‘low level shower-head’ out there and send the kids out in their undies for a wash each night. Lawn watered, childhood tradition upheld.

 Hmmm…is that the water police I hear knocking at the front door?