Tell HN: Flooded area in Queensland now the size of Texas
Just a note to say I hope all the hackers are safe in Queensland. The flooded area is reported to be roughly the size of Texas, America's second largest state. The area declared a disaster zone is 75% of Queensland - roughly twice the area of Texas, or roughly the size of Alaska.
So if you're in the area, or were in the area, or have afilliations with the area, I hope you're safe, and wish you the best on the road to recovery, whenever that may start.
ADDED IN EDIT:
From a comment by jacques_chester below:
Here's an easy hack. Pull out your credit card, go
here: http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html
Joint appeal from Red Cross, the Salvation Army and
the Queensland Emergency Service.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 42.9 ms ] threadhttp://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html
Joint appeal from Red Cross, the Salvation Army and the Queensland Emergency Service, I believe.
Edit: http://telethon.smartservice.qld.gov.au/ takes you directly to the credit card donations page. First link gives you other options.
Edit 2: Red Cross direct donations: https://www.redcross.org.au/Donations/onlineDonations.asp
Salvos: https://www.salvationarmy.com.au/newdonation/donation.aspx
BTW, if you're a Suncorp Bank customer and you have forgotten your external transfer password or never had one you can still donate via Internet banking to the Suncorp account number: 002780003
Accepting Visa, MasterCard and Amex. I think it should accept international cards with Visa/MC etc doing the currency conversion to AUD.
But every dollar will find a use now helping to evacuate, feed and protect people from the flood waters and in future it will help them to rebuild.
I have also heard it can be a problem to donate for specific causes, if the organizations then are not allowed to use the money for other things.
Since apparently these australians live in flooding areas, how many of them have not been insured? Would i encourage them to skip insurance in the future, too, if i would donate now?
1. Most insurers don't drive home the point that they're only insuring for storm and surge, not for flood ... until after the floods are done.
2. Flood insurance is usually set at very high prices. In some parts of the country it's consequently been made illegal to settle in flood zones. But these floods are so large that they're affecting areas that have never flooded before, where a rational person wouldn't have bought flood insurance anyway.
I'm honestly not sure if you'd be encouraging them to skip insurance in future. I suspect not, because the government payouts in past natural disasters have only been a fraction of the damage caused, whereas a good insurance policy could pay 100% or more of the cost. It's still rational to take the insurance if you can afford it.
I imagine that at this point emergency services in the south of the US are pretty good at responding to tornadoes, for example.
I collected some footage and images if anyone is interested: http://phillipsdesign.com.au/notebook/toowoomba-floods/
Good luck to the people in Brisbane and surrounds, stay safe.
A few years ago I helped write a book on the history of Brisbane Riverfront homes. Most of those owners knew exactly where the previous floods (especially 1974, which this one will roughly equal) had reached. In some cases, their multi-million dollar home had been submerged; in one case, the owner boasted how they had come home to find a yacht in their living room. They all knew that no matter how many dams were built or droughts were declared, floods would happen again. I hope they're all safe.
Another interesting piece of information from that book's research was that it takes, on average, about 20 years for the effects of flooding to dissipate in the community. This is most obvious through riverfront housing prices - yes, they are multi-million dollars now (or at least, were 2 weeks ago), but it took a long time after 1974 (and 1955 and 1893) for the mindset to shift from 'major risk' to 'major desire'. Another way of saying: the impact of this flood on the city I love will last a generation.
My housemates and I had to evacuate our apartment building this morning. Our place is on the fourth story so our things should be ok, but we won't be able to get back until Saturday, if not later. After all the thunder, lightning, and rain over the last few days it was a bit surreal to be wading down our street (carrying my pack out of the water and trying not to let the cat drown) on a hot and sunny summer morning.
Find smaller, local charities. I know it's not easy but it will actually help people rather than just making us feel better.
Just google the fiasco with what they did with the millions they got after 9/11 when people had impulse to donate but didn't bother to research alternatives. Local chapters kept funds meant for 9/11 and the national headquarters used some of the funds to buy nice furniture for themselves.
The reality is if you want your donation to go towards a specific cause, you are always best off finding a local charity that is smaller and highly optimized and already has "feet on the ground" in the area.
Randomly throwing money at causes to make oneself feel better is wasteful and defeating.