Evacuation Grounds: Boyne River

While southerners and some in other parts of Queensland are praying for rain or doing collective rain dances, up here around Gladstone we are measuring the rainfall in the past few days in feet (or metres if you prefer).
Three months with little or no rain, now multiple highway and roads cut, flood alerts issued, and still it's raining. Earlier this morning our total had reached 1050 mls or 42 inches or over a metre. I sent this email to family members about 7.30 am today:

"Well we are now past 1050 mls or 42 inches on the old scale since it started a couple of days ago which is mind boggling. Highest one day rain ever for yesterday. 460 mm or over 18 inches in the 24 hrs to noon on Friday. It's still raining and an emergency flood alert has been issued for homes along the Boyne River which is expected to peak at 8.45 this morning. Awoonga Dam is 4.8 metres over the spillway which is higher than the flood level two years ago. Can't get to the dam but might venture over to Boyne Island later for some pics.

Wind gusts over 90 km/hr in Gladstone yesterday. Apart from a couple of pot plants blown over, we have fared very well although the yard is pretty soggy.

I don't remember seeing rain like this before here. We were stuck at Tewantin during the Jan 2011 floods but as I said, the dam level did not reach this height. If old Noah was around now he would be building an ark for sure."

Well the houses at the Boyne mouth did survive this morning's high tide unscathed but with water lapping their front yards. However they are not out of the woods (water) yet the dam is now 5.5 metres or more than a metre above the 2011 level over the spillway, and could reach 7.5 metres over. I tried to post some photos I took this morning but the link options look different and I lost the whole post. Will try again later.

I don't think they wanted a water view this close to the homes near the river mouth at Boyne Island. Note though that the water, fed by an overflow from Awoonga Dam more than 5r metres above the spillway, is relatively clean.

Meanwhile just up the highway at Mt Larcom Peter Neilsen posted this update on Geoff Brown's discussion this morning:

"Peter Neilsen January 26, 2013 at 11:53 AM Latest for Mt Larcom. The total known rainfall for period 9-00pm Wednesday night to 9-00am Saturday morning is approx 54 INCHES . Exact amount is largely unknown because I had to estimate the rainfall because the gauge overflowed when I dared to go to bed to get some sleep.  The total for the 24 hours would be 755mm plus because of not having an exact reading. My gauge is only a 6 inch (150mm) one but I access it from my front landing and do not have to go downstairs to read it. When it stops raining I am going to have to pull the weather station down and clear out the spider that has crawled into the "tipping bucket" mechanism and stopped the bucket from tipping.  When It overflowed this morning, I estimated the rainfall for the 6.5 hours from 2-00am to 8-30am (when I finally dragged myself out of bed). The rainfall for 1 hour from 8-30 til 9-30 was 72mm which would have given a reading of 468mm for the 6.5 hour period. This would mean a 24 HOUR reading of 755mm (or a bit over 30 inches.  The estimate would have been a bit on the conservative side because I took the 1 hour reading just before the rain eased. It had been raining much harder during the entire night."   

If you think we are exaggerating, here are some Observer links. Amazingly no serious flooding inundating houses around here yet although there could be some up in the Boyne Valley.

http://www.gladstoneobserver.com.au/news/flooding-emergency-alert-issues-boyne-river-gladst/1732730/

http://www.gladstoneobserver.com.au/news/no-need-panic-awoonga-could-go-75m-above-spillway/1732760/

 The beach near Canoe Point just after high tide this morning.

The night before all the rain started. Freddo enjoying the dog's water bowl verandah spa bath. No shortage of water now.
Update Sunday morning hundreds evacuated and hundreds more out sightseeing: