Get Ready to Stay Safe in Foods, Cyclones and Storms
As La Niña weather conditions strengthen, the season to be jolly is a stark reminder to get ready for the season of floods, cyclones and storms.
The weather phenomenon, thought to have caused severe weather around the globe including floods in the United States and Australia, has strengthened across the pacific during November.
An update on La Niña is due on 21st December, but for now it remains weaker in comparison to 2010, says the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
Disasters don’t give you much time to think let alone act. A message stuck on our fridge door is a reminder that January 2011 was not a happy new year for many Australians and now it's time to “Get Ready Queensland”.
The main lesson my husband and I learned from the 2011 Queensland floods was to prepare for disaster well before it happens and if you get a warning, act early.
Australia may be the driest country in the world but tropical Queensland can swing from drought to drenched in a matter of weeks. On the 11th January 2011, three quarters of the state was declared a disaster zone. That’s an area five times the size of United Kingdom.
Last year, the La Niña weather phenomenon, the strongest in decades, brought an early and long wet season to Queensland. Record monsoonal rain followed record drought swelling creeks and rivers.
In the capital city of Brisbane, storm drains were overwhelmed and a dam at breaking point meant that even more water had to be released into a river which could take no more. It broke its banks and swamped the city of Brisbane causing the worst flooding in 37 years and, in terms of the number of people affected, it was the most devastating on record.
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