- Joined
- Mar 27, 2011
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Flooding, and fallen trees.
Along the coasts, the storm surge was more than anyone was expecting. Yes it was only category 1, but combined with high tide, it was far more than what the infrastructure was ever meant to handle. There quite literally has never been a storm like this before.
Inland the biggest problem by far is from fallen trees. The wind didn't take off any roofs, or push in windows, but there are a lot of very old, very heavy trees around... too many will not be becoming any older.
I don't know about Australia, but here, for the most part all the wires are strung along telephone poles, so when the trees fell, wires, and poles went down too.
Along with all of this, the amount of rain dumped caused flooding along all rivers, however small. The one next to my office is barely a brook, maybe five feet across, three feet deep, and it had to rise at least ten feet... which it did.
By far the worst damage is along the coasts. I know many of the boardwalks that have been destroyed, it's something that's hard to truly accept.
The fact of the matter is nothing was built to withstand this kind of a situation. It would be akin to you having a blizzard with five feet of snow, and a week of well below zero temperatures.
Along the coasts, the storm surge was more than anyone was expecting. Yes it was only category 1, but combined with high tide, it was far more than what the infrastructure was ever meant to handle. There quite literally has never been a storm like this before.
Inland the biggest problem by far is from fallen trees. The wind didn't take off any roofs, or push in windows, but there are a lot of very old, very heavy trees around... too many will not be becoming any older.
I don't know about Australia, but here, for the most part all the wires are strung along telephone poles, so when the trees fell, wires, and poles went down too.
Along with all of this, the amount of rain dumped caused flooding along all rivers, however small. The one next to my office is barely a brook, maybe five feet across, three feet deep, and it had to rise at least ten feet... which it did.
By far the worst damage is along the coasts. I know many of the boardwalks that have been destroyed, it's something that's hard to truly accept.
The fact of the matter is nothing was built to withstand this kind of a situation. It would be akin to you having a blizzard with five feet of snow, and a week of well below zero temperatures.
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