Work Update

Santos Place, overlooking the Brisbane River

Over the past couple of years Santos, and a number of Australian based companies, have been working towards supplying the markets in China and other Asian countries with natural gas sourced from coal seams, called coal seam gas (CSG), similar to the CBM plays in Canada.  These deals involve the federal and state governments and require approvals from different levels of government and different interest groups, including landowner and environmental groups.  In addition to getting approval from all of these groups, the company also requires approval from it's own board and the boards of the partnership companies.  On January 13, Santos achieved the green light and released the final investment decision (FID)...the project was officially declared a "go".

This is a very big deal, much bigger than anything that either of us have been involved with before.  The Weekend Australian reported the numbers this way: Santos, with it's partners Petronas, Total and Kogas, are building a liquified natural gas (LNG) plant at Gladstone, 550 km north of Brisbane on the north-east coast of Queensalnd, that will have the capacity to ship 708 million tonnes of LNGs per year.  The LNG plant will be ready to start shipping in 2015.  This project has a capex of $18 Billion and will create 5000 jobs over the next few years, as the plant is built and becomes operational.  This is not the only LNG project that is ramping up right now, BG/CNOOC/Tokyo Gas have a project valued at $18 Billion and Origin/Conoco have a $35 Billion project (wow).  All of these projects will be on stream by 2015 and will create thousands of jobs along the way, both temporary and permanent, including the two that we have! 

Happy Australia Day!

Today, January 26 2011, marks 110 years since the Commonwealth of Australia was officially formed.  From what we have been able to glean together from various internet sources (not always reliable but very convenient) Australia has been inhabited by Aborigine people for thousands of years but the written history of Australia goes back to the early 1600s, when Tasmania was mapped by a Dutch explorer, Abel Tasman.  Zoom ahead more than 100 years to 1770, when Captain James Cook landed in Botany Bay.  In 1788 the penal colony of Sydney was established, also on January 26, and the exploration and settlement of Australia began.  In 1901 the federation of the states of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia formed the country that we now call home.  There are also various territories, including the Northern Territory, which was not part of the official group comprising the original commonwealth (we think). 
This Australia Day was unusual in Brisbane because of the devastation wreaked by the floods only two weeks ago.  We were told that there is normally a big celebration at Southbank and a fireworks display, but none of that was possible this year.  Southbank is still cordoned off to the public and the crews who would set up the fireworks have far more important things to do.  It is also pretty tough to budget for fireworks when there is talk of a new tax or "flood levy" that all Australians will be paying in 2011 and beyond. 
For our first Australia Day we decided to walk to the CBD for lunch and then head to the greyhound races!  When we sat down in the pub for lunch we asked if they would mind turning on the Australian Open tennis for us, rather than a cricket match rebroadcast from 1987 and a footie match.  Not only did they turn on the tennis, they decided to show the live footage of the Montreal Canadiens-Philadelphia Flyers hockey game.  We sat in 32C heat watching live hockey...how crazy is that!

We went to the dog races for the first time ever and really enjoyed it.  We saw only young dogs new to racing and some of them were completely clueless.  They take the young dogs to the side of the track and let the "rabbit" (it's actually a rag on a stick) run around the track past them so that they know to chase it.  The races are about 300m and the dogs didn't seem too tired afterwards, so we think they had a good time too.
We know that Australians have a fantastic reputation for being friendly and caring and that was certainly seen with all the volunteering and flood relief that we have seen over the past coule of weeks.  Even with knowing that, we had some big misconceptions about Australia before we moved here.  The first one was that Australia was a totally macho society.  Not only is the Prime Minister female, three of the states have female premiers.  Not exactly the man's world we were expecting!
Our second misconception, that moving to a city of 2 million people would result in seeing more crime than we did in Calgary, was realized yesterday when we came home from work and noticed that our city-provided garbage wheelie bin was missing.  We walked around the block and couldn't see it at anyone else's place and decided that someone must have nicked it.  We thought that due to all the flood clean-up going on someone just needed it.  When we got home today, however, it was back on our driveway.  It was only borrowed, not stolen and returned a little dusty but not really any worse for wear.  Another prejudice proven wrong!

Long road

The long road to recovery has now begun.  We were back at work on Monday the 17th and the entire CBD, excluding the portion near Eagle St Pier, was up and running. 

Eagle St Pier Business , fenced off for repairs January 22 (Blackberry photo)

Clean up started right away and many businesses were able to open mid-week.  The biggest problem for most people who were not flooded, was the lack of power.  All substations in flood areas were turned off.  It depended on how many homes and businesses were connected to the substation for how quickly it was reactivated.  Our substation was in a flood zone but was not flooded and it was back on within 55 hours of being turned off.  Many substations had massive residential connections and have not yet been turned back on, for fear of electrical fires in houses that have now been damaged.  There is also a problem with apartment buildings that had flooding in the underground parking garages.  If the electrical panel and all power systems were in the garage, everything needs to be inspected and potentially replaced prior to being recertified and turned back on.  We know of many people living in apartments who had no flooding in their units, but there was either water in the substation or in their electrical systems.  They were without power for a week...a week of hot weather (+30C, finally) and no air conditioning.  We would have made for a hotel and paid for the cool!  Clearly we are not yet Australians.

A wild week

Only a week ago we went into work and found out that there was a flood warning for low-lying areas in Brisbane.  We felt like we were being a bit paranoid, or maybe even just a couple of big babies, but we left work at around noon.  That mood quickly changed when our office closed for the day, then the reality of the flood really started to set in.  We moved all of our furniture upstairs, almost got stranded in a suburb trying to evacuate and eventually spent 2 nights in a hotel.  For all this, we were extremely fortunate.  We keep saying that we were lucky and now we can show just how lucky we were.

On January 14, the day after the waters peaked, a company called "Near Map" did a high resolution photo grid of Brisbane.  Below is a screen shot of how close the waters came to our house.  The waters had already started ot recede at this time, but the marks are still visible.  Our house is marked with a pink dot.  Suncorp Stadium is on the right-hand side of the photo.  The normal bank of the Brisbane River is about 700m to the south of our house.  The townhouse to the right of our place was under about 2 feet of water and is currently uninhabitable. 

Here is a zoom in on our house.  That water was closer than we thought.  It wasn't just the storm drains that we had to worry about, but the water spilling in from the yards to the north of us.  We are glad we didn't know that last week, ignorance it bliss!

There are some really good websites and photo sites that give thorough views of the flood waters.

The website that we used for the screen captures is http://www.nearmap.com/.  Type in "Brisbane, QLD" into the box marked "Find".  The option to choose, if it doesn't default there, is "Photomap".  If there are heavy coloured lines marking the streets, hover the mouse on Photomap until a menu appears and click off "streetview".  This website is pretty busy, so it might take a few tries to get in.

There are also some great before and after shots on the Australia Broadcasting Corporation site.  Click on the link and hover your mouse over the pictures, moving the bar that appears from side to side.  These shots show just how bad the flooding was:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/qld-floods/beforeafter.htm


Since last weeks floodpeak we have had 7 straight days of beautiful sunny weather...here's hoping we get more of this and not more rain.  We're all getting a little shell shocked!

Recovery

Since the peak of the flood waters on Thursday morning, Brisbane has been in recovery mode.  The waters receded more quickly than expected and by Saturday morning the clean-up effort was in full force.  Friday when we arrived home the those living on the main street near our house, Baroona, which had been completely underwater, had already started the clean-up.
Residents were instructed to just put all refuse out by the curb and there was a constant stream of garbage trucks going in and picking up garbage.  By the end of the day on Friday there was nothing left curbside.  There were so many volunteers that the city had to turn people away.  We saw groups of people with brooms and brushes walking up and down the street, offering help where ever it was needed.  The most valuable commodity in all of Queensland are gumboots.  They are impossible to find but completely necessary.  The flood muck is full of bacteria and it is just too easy to get a bad infection by walking in the muck in flip-flops (standard Aussie footwear in all weather).

McDonald's and Suncorp Stadium (5 minute walk from our house) January 14

McDonald's and Suncorp Stadium January 15

By tomorrow morning the city is anticipating that most businesses will be open.  The exceptions are those that were right on the water front and will need time to get in new fixtures and get replacements for any glassware that was lost.  For as devastating as the flood was, there is concern that businesses that are able to open just won't get the customers in.  The Lord Mayor has been on television reminding everyone that places are open for trade and that we all need to do our part by continuing to shop and go out for dinner in these places.  We felt guilty about it, but we did go out for dinner last night at a place that stayed open during the floods.  The people working there seemed happy to get in customers and we were not the only ones out, the few places that were open were full.

January 14, looking west on Baroona drive at the end of our street

January 15, looking west on Baroona Drive

Now that the danger has passed for most of Queensland, both New South Wales and Victoria are facing flood crises.  The bad weather here just won't end.  As bad as it has been, with 16 dead and 15 missing, this is nothing compared to what they are experiencing with heavy rain and landslides in South America.  As we have said before, we are very lucky.

The aftermath...

We are now back at home after two very stressful days.  We arrived back here at about 10:30 in the morning to a dry house, but still without power.  We moved all of our furniture back downstairs and got rid of the sandbags and plastic that we had at the front of the house.  The power came back on at about 12:30 in the afternoon, so we are just about back to normal. 

Our townhouse, ready for the worst with the limited material we had

We couldn't move the sectional or dining table upstairs, we hoped this would do the trick

...less than three hours after returning

As shocking as it was to see the water rise so quickly, it is even more surprising to see how quickly it has drained away.  We were told to expect that it could take up to a week for the waters to completely subside, and in many places that is probably true, but the water was gone from our street this morning when we returned and the cleanup had already started.  They have warned people about the things that they could find in the sludge: sharp objects, lots of broken things, fish and snakes (eek).  We don't have the necessary gumboots and clean-up equipment to really be of any help, we are just talking to all of our neighbours and making sure that they are okay.  A long time resident up the street told us we were less than 1/2 metre of water level rise from devastation...he was living on this street for the 1974 floods. 

The office is expected to be open on Monday and they are trying to keep a "business as usual" mandate.  Right now we don't feel like we could even function at work, but a couple of good nights sleep should sort us out.  It will be a relief to get away from the news, if nothing else.

Our street this morning, water-free!

The day after...

But for only 90cm, we would have had a flooded house.  The flood peak was called for 5.5m and was to occur at 4am Thursday morning.  The day before this expected peak we were evacated, the power was shut off, and the flood was at a level of 3.4m and still rising.  We were expecting another 2m of water and that would have put water right up to our house, and we would have had some flooding.  Our neighbours would have been inundated.

"

"Drive-though" McDonalds and Suncorp Stadium where U2 just played a couple concerts

The Pathway we normally take home from work

Our attached townhouse is on the left, the lighter coloured road mark is the high-water

We tried to get to the home of some friends who live outside of Brisbane, but the train couldn't get to their station and our friends could not get to us.  We caught the second last train back into Brisbane and did everything we could to move almost all of our furniture up and shore up the property. What we couldn't move upstairs, we propped up.  We started phoning around for hotels that were open and were lucky enough on our second call to find one that was holding rooms for evacuees.  Many hotels closed or were fully booked for the emergency services volunteers.
We thought we could catch a cab to the hotel from the train station, but we soon found out that Milton Road around Suncorp Stadium was completely inundated.  We walked up to the highest point that we could think of and waited for a cab. We are staying in a really nice hotel but had  a sleepless night waiting for the floodpeak at 4 am.  We turned on the TV at 2:30 in the morning and saw that they were now calling for a peak of 4.6m instead of 5.5m...that translated into hope.  At the first opportunity this morning we walked back to our house and saw that the water had not hit our house or our neighbours.  It is hard to describe the emotions that go with seeing a dry house, but suffice it to say that we felt just about every positive emotion there is, all at once.  If the water had reached the predicted peak, we would have been hit.  90cm is about the length of a baseball bat, or a yardstick.   That is too close for comfort but we will take what we can get.
The power should be back on at our home by this evening (Thursday) or tomorrow, but we will stay in the hotel tonight and have a good sleep.  Tomorrow we can go back home and move all of our furniture back and try to get everything back to normal.
For all of this strife and the negative situation, we have been extremely lucky.  We have also met all of our neighbours who were staying on the street and every one of them offered to put us up.  We were expected to be the last house to get water and everyone as very sympathitic and supportive.  We have also had so much support from Santos and our managers at work.  Strangers have looked out for us and asked if they could do anything to help.  Maybe it is the British influence, but the overal attitude has been one of "keep calm and carry on", and so we shall!

Looking west from the corner of our street this morning, the deepest part is about 2.5 metres.

Flood blog on the the fly

After weeks of hearing that the dams upstream should keep us safe, there has been a major breach and we now find ourselves in a flood zone.  The dams are holding up to 200% capacity with all gates open and water spilling over the top.  There are three catchment areas that drain into the Brisbane River and all are feeding in more than the river can handle.
Brisbane is in a geographical situation similar to London, in that it is essentially built on an estuary.  The river is dealing with water draining in from the catchment areas, but also dealing with tidal water coming in from the ocean.  These two walls of water meet and the river has no where to go but over its banks.  Our problem here is not that the river water will meet us, but that the storm sewer water levels are rising with the river level.  We are currently sitting about 2.5m above the street level of the storm sewer, and the water is sitting right below the street level.  It has come up about half a metre since this morning.  High tide today will peak at ~2pm and that will give us a couple more metres of water.  The model suggests that water levels will be higher than 1974, not good news for anyone.
We are very lucky though.  There are evacuation centres here and we have had time to move everything up from the ground level of our townhouse.  We are not in any mortal danger, unlike the flash flood victims from Toowoomba on Monday.  There are at least 10 dead and another 60 missing.  We know that things could be much worse but we have done everything that we can.  Now we have 12 - 24 hours to get through.  If we don't get flooded by this time tomorrow, we should be fine.

Danger on the Brisbane River: a loose boat and dock

Looking west from the end of our street (the river is east of us)

"River side" restaurant, normally ~1.5m above the river

Link to the Brisbane Times: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/



Inundated!

As anyone who has looked at a newspaper lately knows, it is raining in Australia right now...a lot.  It is currently 3:45pm on Sunday afternoon and so far today we have had 53mm of rain, 31mm in the last hour!  This really shows there is truth in the saying "when it rains, it pours" (or is it "it never rains but pours"?)...whatever the saying is, no kidding.
The weather forecasters are running out of new ways to describe the weather so the forecasts have statements like "rain with periods of rain, occasionally heavy".   It's hard to argue with that, since it seems to be what we are getting!

Brisbane is really lucky.  In 1974 there were massive floods here and there was only one dam upstream of the city.  When that broke the whole downtown area ended up under water.  Since 1974 they have built five dams upstream in relatively unpopulated areas.  They can manage the dams and the water without putting any towns in flood peril.  The picture above shows the flood levels from previous years.  The lowest sign, even with the light standard, is from 1974.  The river is across the road from this building (the Regatta Pub and Hotel, a fine historic Queenslander building) and is about 5m below street level.  From the bottom up the signs represent the flood levels in 1974, 1887, 1893 and 1841.  We had stuck this photo in the blog once before, but we now know how significant those levels are.  If it weren't for the dams we would probably have water lapping at our front door, and we are about 700m from the river, slightly uphill!
The flooding is mainly occuring 400 - 500km north of Brisbane, in and around the towns of Emerald and Rockhampton.  The topography there has almost no relief so the water isn't drianing away.  There are constant storm cells moving in and most of them move slowly over that area, sometimes dumping more than 100mm of rain in a day.
The really amazing thing is that while there are a few grumblers, most people are just trying to make do and wait it all out.  No-one is blaming the government or trying to point the finger at eco-terrorists.  Everyone accepts that this is nature and nature can be very mean.  Anyone who drives into a flood zone and requires rescuing will face a criminal charge, no whining allowed!  The miners and oil workers that are currently not working are being put to work by their parent companies to help with the clean-up and to get food and water in to people who are isolated by flood waters.  There is no end in sight to the rain and people are really trying to carry on as normally as possible.  We saw a news story about a man who, rather casually, said that he was staying in his house so that he could keep out the snakes...ack! 

Below is a link to a local newspaper's photo section for anyone is interested in seeing how bad this flood really is:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/photogallery/environment/weather/flood-disaster-surges-on/20110101-19cgs.html

Off to a good start...

We have really enjoyed our week off from work between Christmas and New Year's.  The weather has been quite bad and we know the stories about the floods in Queensland have made the news all over the world.  We haven't seen floods in our part of Brisbane, but we have certainly seen enough rain...almost 500mm in December, including one day when we had more than 80mm of rain! 

We got completely soaked on December 26 and 27, but then things started to get a bit nicer and we were able to take a day trip to Surfer's Paradise on the Gold Coast.  It was a beautiful day and well worth the hour long train and bus ride.  A lot of people commute from the Gold Coast to Brisbane everyday, but that seems a bit far.

On New Year's Eve day we went to the beach that is in Brisbane, in the Southbank area.  This is a family beach and swimming area that was created to give Brisbane a beach right in the city.  Unlike other Australian cities that are built on the coast, Brisbane does not have a city beach.  There are plenty of beaches that are nearby, but nothing right in the city.  This is a terrific area with the beach and pools, shopping, cafes and constant street fairs.  For New Year's Eve the entire area was fenced in to create a non-alcohol, family friendly zone.  Obviously we didn't stick around too long after we found that out!
Yesterday we went to the Brisbane International Tennis tournament for the opening day's matches.  It was amazing to see how fast the players move and how hard they hit the ball.  A really different experience from seeing a match on televison.  This is considered a warmup event to the Australian Open in Melbourne later this month.
The highlight (or at least one of the highlights) of our time off was the possum that we saw when we came home on New Year's Eve.  Possums are a little shy, but also curious.  We were able to get a photo of this guy, with a flash, and he even hung around for a second shot.  We think he eventually ran away, not because he was scared, but because we didn't feed him!