Listening to the reports from 'journalists' on cyclone Yasi is truly painful. If you thought that they couldn't pump up the hyperbole any more after the Toowoomba, Lockyer Valley, Ipswich, and Brisbane floods you were mistaken!
"The biggest cyclone ever to hit Australia" was one I heard tonight. Stern anchorblondes babbling, just to talk. Like the descriptions of the water during the flood reports, many are giving the cyclone anthropomorphic traits.
Anna Bligh is doing a marvellous job talking, I suppose the shock and awe of the Queensland natural disasters of early 2011 are lending a bit of sincerity to her speeches. I hope that this doesn't whitewash all the let downs of the ALP in Queensland over the past many years.
Bunker down? WTF? Here, read this for a laugh - don't miss the link to Urban Dictionary. My reaction to the stupid term is the same. Surely the term should be that everyone is embunkered?
Watching the news and seeing the same footage of a huge wave washing over a woman standing at a fence by the beach... interspersed with images of the reporter who is on the phone, and iPhone by the looks of it. Gripping TV. And it's been going for half an hour.
Reporters are renowned for cocking up the facts. I know many stories which have been reported and the facts have been so screwed up that anyone with any knowledge of the subject knows that the whole story is just incorrect. It's happened to me with an ABC reporter. Couldn't get the facts straight. The reporter stuck a microphone in my face and just expected me to speak - I don't speak in public like that usually, I was expecting to be asked questions about what I was involved in. The newspaper reporter was better, but still buggered up the details.
John O'Dougherty needs to get new contacts, his going to blink himself to death - or is it another semaphore secret message like Gillards flapping hands?
And do we really need a pep talk from Julia?
One thing is for sure, after the floods and the cyclone Australians mostly won't be whinging about noone helping them or saving them.
Update:
And now a report from Ingham, where the core of the cyclone has hit.
Core? Core of the cyclone? Don't they mean the cyclone proper?
Reports of an 18m wave at Townsville is inaccurate as waves are breaking over the measuring buoy and it is turning upside down so the wave measurements are inaccurate.
Update 2:
Check this comparison out at Zoe Brain's, what would Yasi look like if it was headed for the US?
13 comments:
As I understand it Cyclone Yahtzee IS the largest cyclone to cross the Qld coast (Australia's largest? Quite possible - it is certainly one of the largest cyclone/hurricane/typhoon ever)
If ever anyone was inclined to pray, pray for Georgetown. The forecast is for Cyclone Yahtzee to hit it tomorrow as a Cat 3 storm.
Which won't be funny for Georgetown.
Bligh looks very good on TV managing all this, and she appears to have done a very good job. Qld produces some very good leaders but won't share them with the rest of the nation, instead we get your reject weirdos like Rudd.
Even if it turns out Yasi wasn't so bad, all the precautions were justified.
Gillard said "the largest cyclone in living memory" to hit Australia - which is better, but the reporters were still saying the biggest storm ever to hit Australia.
I was in Darwin in 1981 and there was high wind warning while I was there... Tracy was still fresh in my mind, and I didn't get much sleep that night.
I'd hate to go through a cyclone, but they are a fact of life in the north. Seems like the new building standards saved a lot of the new post-Larry homes in Innisfail - we will see more as the day wears.
I hope it's only property, for all the people up north, though that's hard to take, too.
Bruce
Although Bligh has shone during these natural disasters the state is a wreck with the profligate spending and waste which is the hallmark of the ALP.
I'm hoping that Bligh's shining moments in all these years of ALP mismanagement will not save the ALP's bacon in Queensland come the next state election.
kae, Bligh is spinning fast to keep the media distracted. By the way did the nurses get paid?
Refueling at sea is often termed "bunkering", and in the back of my memory is a vagueness about a naval comrade discussing it in terms similar to 'bunkering down'.
I apologise for mentioning a naval association; it was inadvertent.
Cheers
It seems that blonde airhead anchors are the same south of the equator as here.
I would have to stick with living memory.
The biggest storm ever is stretching it......it presumes someone has been watching since how long ago?
Was talking to my Dad this morning to check he was not to worried about the Cyclone [he is on the Sunshine Coast] and he said that Anna Bligh has been on TV alot up there and that she looked "wretcherd", and he thought that was because a lot of the problems re the flooding could have been avoided or a lot worse if She as Premier had been doing her job correctly.
As for the cyclones, he said they will always be around and one must be prepared to face them if you live in that area, but he felt [as do I] very sad at the loss of stock/produce/homes being faced by the farmers, and residents.
"Bunker down" had me yelling at my poor defenceless TV after I'd heard it about 10 times.
"Hunker. Hunker, you idiot! Hunker in a bunker. Got it?". I felt much better after that.
I caught some of Channel 7's "rolling coverage" last night and it was just bloody annoying. Crossing to this reporter, that reporter (on the other side of the same building), another one stationed in another town, then another one, scratching desperately for something that was actually newsworthy. Just rubbish.
Channel 9 this morning wasn't much better. A bit of water here and there. Lots of iron sheeting twisted and crumpled. Broken glass. Typical cyclone stuff.
Later in the day, of course, there was newsworthy footage. If only they'd waited until they had something real to report instead of running with talking heads yabbering about nothing for hours on end.
For all that, I am in awe of the planning and preparation that made such a difference to what would otherwise have been a truly horrific outcome. So much was learned, an applied, after Cyclone Larry. Well done, Queensland emergency services.
Don't overlook, kae, stern anchorblondes babbling (I liked that touch) about the "perfect storm."
I know it means a film starring the wooden George Clooney and that's all.
I'm sure if one asked them what they mean by "perfect storm" they'd look blankly and mutter "whatever."
But ... all kitted out in designer Drizabone type overcoats with logo, looking like a North Sea fisherman - er - fisherperson-facility-event, they stood bravely this morning in Cairns at 27 degrees earnestly reporting on the stressful conditions of boredom for locals in evacuation centres.
Then it'd be back on the evening flight to Sydney to escape the "like a war zone", patting each other on the back for an unprecedentedly fine job in unprecedented conditions at their Cairns Hyatt minibar.
Regards,
Mick Gold Coast QLD
I'll allow "biggest storm"
(unless I discover a bigger one to have hit Qld.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5cR6JpRCnM
Cheers
Oops! Forgot to sign my anonymous post.
Sandi
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