Who Do You Trust?

The last few weeks have brought terrible events in which large numbers of people have lost everything, some even dying.

On February 24th Russia invaded Ukraine, wreaking death and destruction right through the much smaller nation. Then on the 28th, much closer to home, floodwaters rolled through Lismore and many other towns on the NSW North Coast.

Both these events were, in some ways, expected. That doesn’t reduce the shock or the devastation of the destruction that takes place.

In both situations it has been inspiring to see the ways that ordinary people have moved to serve their neighbours in the midst of chaos.

We intuitively believe that our homes are places of safety, and that we are protected there. We derive a lot of security from the belief that our possessions will help us cope with anything life will throw at us.

What happens when it all gets taken from you by force or by nature? Where do you turn for your security then?

In Psalm 27, King David writes: “The Lord is my light and my salvation – so why should I be afraid? The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?”

Our response to devastating situations shows where we put our trust.

God doesn’t promise to protect us from floods and fire, but He does promise to go with us through tough times, and give us peace in the middle of chaos.

Jo Nova: There were Bigger Floods and Rain-bombs in the 1800’s

Jo Nova writes:

If only the $3 million dollar a day ABC could afford a science team that could do as much research as one unpaid volunteer does in a day?

Thanks to Cliff Ollier and Ken Stewart for the BOM graph of past Brisbane Floods. Clearly things were worse in the 1800s.

If CO2 has any effect perhaps it reduces flooding?

There have always been big floods in Brisbane       | BOM Source   |  KensKingdom

One day when the ABC finally gets the Internet they’ll be able to find official pages like “Known Floods in the Brisbane and Bremer River Basin“. And one day the half billion dollar BOM agency will be able to update graphs like this within a week of a new flood peak, like bloggers did (above).

Ken Stewart went looking for lost Rain Bombs and found them

As Ken reports the ABC made a fuss over three Queensland sites recording more than 1 metre of rain in just four days. But neither the ABC or the BOM is telling Australians that there have been at least nine similar “Rain Bombs” before and most of them were more than one hundred years ago.

I went looking at Climate Data Online for four day rainfall totals over one metre, to compare with the recent totals above at Mount Glorious, Pomona, and Bracken Ridge. For a start, Pomona’s BOM station has been closed for years, and Bracken Ridge is not listed at all, so those reports are from rain gauges external to the BOM network and can’t be checked.  That’s OK.  In about half an hour I found the following four day rainfall records.

Crohamhurst4/2/18931963.6mm
Yandina3/2/18931597.8mm
Tully Sugar Mill13/02/19271421.3mm
Palmwoods4/2/18931244.6mm
Buderim3/2/18931150.3mm
Bloomsbury20/01/19701141.8mm
Dalrymple Heights6/04/19891141mm
Innisfail3/04/19111075.8mm
Nambour11/1/18981013mm

1893 was a wet year!  Crohamhurst had 2023.8 in five days, and Brisbane had three floods in two weeks in February and another in June.

And there is no such thing as a “rain bomb”, a term invented to make it sound unprecedented.  This was an entirely natural and normal rain event.  Slow moving tropical lows drift south every few years in the wet season, producing a large proportion of Queensland’s average rainfall.

It’s another Red pill moment. Spread the news. Australians need to know the media and the BOM are not giving them the whole truth. Has anyone in the BOM called up the ABC and corrected their mistake? Isn’t that their job?