Bribie Island officially reconnected as workers close breakthrough
A breakthrough at Bribie Island that caused damage to parts of the Sunshine Coast shoreline has officially closed…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #AU #Australia #BribieIsland #BribieIslandbreakthrough #coastalerrosion #coastalmanagement #construction #cyclonealfred #dredging #Engineering
https://www.newsbeep.com/246980/
We're about to set off for another #EmergencyCommsExercise at #SouthbrookQld for the #Toowoomba Endurance Horse Riders' Association Hip Pocket Challenge.
This _was_ to take place in March, however #CycloneAlfred was the final word on that… so it got postponed until now. Southbrook is a little south-west of Toowoomba on the high plains… very open to the wind and quite high in altitude. Consequently, I'm grabbing all the warm gear I can lay my hands on. This morning Toowomba region had a overnight minimum of -0.1°C. Sunday is predicted to get down to 5°C (a little warmer).
It'll also be the first event I try out the checkpoint reporter program I released a couple of weeks ago. I've of course packed clipboards and paper forms, so if things go pear shaped with the computing, we have the paperwork to back it up.
There are four rides taking place. Tomorrow afternoon there's a 20km introductory ride: I understand WICEN's not involved in that one officially, but we'll probably use it as a trial run of the software.
Sunday morning we have an 80km, 40km and 20km ride to support.
I've been busy the last couple of weekends busily coding up a program to assist me on checkpoints at future #EmergencyCommsExercise events.
We have an existing application, written in VisualBASIC 6… which works well, but I worry about future maintainability given its dependence on legacy proprietary development environments.
Therefore I made the decision to write my own: https://checkpointreporter.vk4msl.com/
It uses #Java so it's cross-platform, with fairly simple deployment steps (assuming JREv8+ is there already, just download the .jar and run it). We've got an event at #Southbrook which was moved after #CycloneAlfred wiped things out last time. We'll see how it goes on its inaugural run.
It is windy and rainy outside, so now they are expecting to go into the laundry, just like they did for #CycloneAlfred
We're off again for this year's first #EmergencyCommsExercise. This event is another #HorseEnduranceRide taking place at #KilkivanQld.
First for the year because #CycloneAlfred saw the cancellation of the event at #SouthbrookQld.
I hear we're using 2m FM simplex for this one. Cross-band operation here we come.
During Cyclone Alfred, a local quarry dam in Mount Gravatt burst open, sending debris downstream
https://mountgravattnews.com.au/bmi-group-denies-contamination-claims-after-mt-gravatt-quarry-incident/ 'The company denies any contamination occurred, asserting that all water released from the site met safety standards... Residents in the area have expressed concerns about the long-term environmental impact of the incident, particularly on the local ecosystem. Some have questioned whether BMI Group had sufficient safeguards in place to prevent such an event.'
I see the insects of The Gap decided to put the ANT into ANTenna… talk about upping the ante… time for some AM I guess… ant modulation.
Four major floods in 50 years is an interesting framing: it was one flood 50 years ago, 35 years passed, and then there's been three just in the last 15 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/mar/15/brisbane-flood-proof-housing-developments
Cyclone Alfred (2025) Erosion
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-15/drone-maps-reveal-scale-of-sand-swallowed-in-cyclone/105053372
Bribie Island (2025) “new passage”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-14/call-for-action-on-bribie-island-erosion-after-cyclone-alfred/105045738
I don't get it. This always happens when the cyclone is slow.
Early on they were saying the wind is the problem. They were wrong, I don't know why they were so wrong.
It was slow and a low category. A cat 1-2 coming ashore will rapidly lose strength, but dump hundreds of mm of water for/over days.
This is what happens every time, it is predictable.
I lived in the tropics and went through it countless times. What goes up must come down.
My visualisation of Australian fruit and veg seasonality made the Information is Beautiful awards longlist.
As the food bowl of Australia was flooded thanks to #CycloneAlfred, the information in the guide may be off for a bit until we recover!
WE HAVE POWER!!!
It was due back at 9pm today, but youngest child at home has just messaged to say the power is back on!
HFC NBN seems to be up here, after #CycloneAlfred made a mess of things.
It's been a long few days. 4G works, but where I am in The Gap, we're in a hollow, and so do not have good line-of-sight to the nearby towers (there are 3 in The Gap).
That said, it's still intermittent. So far it's set a record for uptime, but it still could fall over. I'll be keeping the @vk4msl back-up account going a little while yet.
If you've been wondering why I've been so quiet, this is why, and that other account is where you'll find my posts during the outage.
#CycloneAlfred, the worst house guest. Ever.
Fire ants floating downstream on huge colony rafts pose existential risk to Australians and wildlife.
www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Large rafts of invasive fire a...
Here’s a video from my parents of what it looked like on the ground (or on the water, as it were) after the main storm had passed, and this was an area where the houses were just high enough to avoid damage. They were very lucky. There were some higher areas that were OK, but lower parts of the town had turned into fast flowing rivers or putrid swamps.
I was watching this storm approach K’gari and Hervey Bay (my home town) throughout that night from here and it’s a huge miss from the Bureau that they didn’t issue any warning about it, because it was obvious for hours in advance that it was severe and was going to cause a problem.
Someone I know had water (actually, sewage) to a depth of more than 700mm in their house 😫
We’ll be back there at the end of the week and hopefully can help a bit with the ongoing clean up.
ABC News is probably the only news organisation in Australia that can and does dedicate resources to doing this kind of regional reporting (which is why its continued funding is so important), but they really need to cut back on adding strong vignettes to photos in articles about natural disasters to try to make them more “dramatic”. Particularly the photos in the second half of this article are a bit much…
🔁 Bureau of Meteorology, Australia (@BOM_au)
The rain and major flooding across #Qld & #NSW that came with ex-Tropical #CycloneAlfred means some rivers are still experiencing flooding, as the rain from the past days flows downstream. Flood Warnings are ongoing.
Latest forecasts and warnings: http://www.bom.gov.au
🐦🔗 https://twitter.com/BOM_au/status/1899643884323713236
🕐 12/03 03:09
