#6 - Natural Disasters: The Aftermath (3/13/11)

Fitzroy River flooding

Note the mudline on the trees on the far bank

Cyclone Yasi damage on the JCU campus

Just a huge mess

Debris everywhere

The Strand - note that half the palm fronds are missing

Sand is no match for a Category 5 cyclone

Most trees resemble this

There were piles of debris in every yard

Those branches are roughly 2 feet thick

An explosion

#5 - Natural Disasters (3/13/11)

What is going on? Perhaps the Mayans were right in their apocalyptic prediction. The last 2 months have produced some truly horrifying catastrophes with each seemingly worse than the one before. My heart goes out to Japan. The video clips of the tsunami are gut-wrenching. I'm hoping a nuclear meltdown doesn't occur, but either way, what a sad day for Japan and the world. I'm praying the expert predictions are wrong and most people are found alive, but it doesn't look good. What the Japanese need, and I mean this entirely as a very nice compliment, is a bit of Aussie in them.
As I'm sure you're all aware, Australia has been going through more than its fair share of natural disaster related woes. Starting in December, and continuing through into early February, much of the state of Queensland was flooding. At it's peak, the flood waters were said to have covered an area the size of France AND Germany combined! Then, as the waters started to recede and people began to assess the damage, Cyclone Yasi thought it would be a good time to crash the party. Except that Yasi wasn't your everyday, run-of-the-mill destructive cyclone. No, she was the biggest cyclone Australia has experienced in recorded history. Sustained winds of 215km/h and gusts approaching 300km/h! That's sustained winds of 130mph and gusts up to 180mph! At her largest, Yasi had an unfathomable diameter of something like 500 kilometers. Put another way, Yasi was quite a bit stronger than Hurricane Katrina.
So when do the family and I decide to take a trip to Queensland? Weeks after the flooding and days before Yasi hits, duh. Approaching our departure, Karen and I spent many hours talking and texting about how the flooding was going to wipe away Townsville. Luckily for us, somehow the river that runs right through town was one of the few that didn't flood. However, our itinerary called for us to drive right through the worst hit parts, chiefly the town of Rockhampton and its surroundings. Up until a few days before we left, Karen and I seriously considered changing our route because we assumed the roads were going to be closed. Luckily for us, they opened a few days before we arrived. Then as we started progressing our way up the coast, Yasi began brewing off the coast. And brewing, and brewing, and brewing. We spent several hours one night in Hervey Bay (well out of the path of the storm) watching the news as the Australian versions of Parka Boy stood out in the rain and wind, a cyclone bearing down on them. When we woke up, much of Northern Queensland had been flattened. Nearly every banana tree Australia possesses was flattened. Palms were battered, sending fronds everywhere. Many homes were destroyed by winds and falling trees. More flooding had begun.We left Hervey Bay heading north expecting to see some depressing sights, hoping our school would still be open.
The thing was, stunningly, we never saw much of anything in terms of damage. We spent a night in Rockhampton, a place where the river had risen by at least 15 feet, and saw almost no hint of damage. Many of the fields were soggy and obviously unusable, but buildings were intact, and most impressively, people still seemed to be in good spirits. As we drove into the destruction of the cyclone, less than a week after it had hit landfall and expecting the worse, we saw almost nothing. To be clear, we saw damage, but nothing like what we expected. Most of the trees we saw looked like they had exploded. I mean that literally. They didn't look like they were wind-damaged, they looked as though a small bomb had been dropped on them. Massive branches were littered everywhere. But at the same time, you expect that in any cyclone, not just a category 5. However, there was almost no structural damage. People were out and about as if nothing had happened.
Within a few weeks, there was almost no sign that anything had happened, much less the most destructive storm in national history. All the debris had been picked up. The trees on the hills behind town look a bit ragged. There are still some uncleared debris in inaccessible sites along the river. But by and large, if you had been unknowingly dropped into Townsville two weeks after the storm, you wouldn't have known a thing. I think this speaks volumes to the way Aussies handle themselves.
No worries is a way of life here, not just a thing people say. There was nothing they could do about the storm, so they evacuated to safe places in an orderly fashion, cleaned up quickly, and avoided saying, "you're doing a helluva job Brownie." As school started and I started meeting locals, one of the first things I was asked was how long I'd been in town and had I experienced the storm. There was a sense of pride that they had experienced, and survived with nary a scratch, the massive storm. They don't spend time worrying about things. Instead they spend their time taking care of things, making sure they'll be safe. Not a single person died in the storm. If that storm had happened in the US, I'm not sure I could write the same thing. I love the US and having spent enough time away I really miss it, but it could really learn a thing about disaster preparedness from the Aussies. I just hope, for Japan's sake, that it has a bit of Aussie in it too.

#4 - Generalizing both the US and Australian education systems to complain about housing (3/2/11)

I suspect a common theme in this blog will be my observations on how Australia both appears similar to, and differs from, the US. On the surface, Australia is remarkably American. In fact, by appearance, Australia is just a more sunburnt version of America, albeit one with a strange inclination to put beetroot and fried egg on its burgers. However, there are obviously differences, and one pertinent to my life is the disparate form of higher education. In the US, college is often referred to as the best 4 years of a person’s life. While that is a blatant stereotype, it does seem to hold true that college is fun for most people. Students enjoy their lives, and often have no desire to progress (digress?) into the real world. In Australia, college is a way to get a high-paying job and not an excuse to party. Admirable? Perhaps. Fun? Not really. While there are certainly many reasons for this, I’d argue the main one is the format of the classes. In the US, classes typically require a student write at least two essays or reports, complete at least one but often two midterms, pass a final, all while turning in small homework assignments. Although it can be a lot of work, no one assignment or test is worth more than roughly 35% of the total grade. This allows for some error and decreases the stress on any assignment. In Australia, classes give almost no weekly homework. In all four of my classes, I have one essay, one report, and a final. The final is worth at least 50% of my grade, if not more. There is no opportunity to learn how the teacher grades nor learn by completing small projects. Instead there is really only one chance to pass or fail the class. Because of this, students spend a great deal of time studying notes and powerpoint slides. They do little else, except get pissed on the weekends. While most of them enjoy what they do, the social aspect of college is greatly reduced. Unlike most major universities in the US, there is no student neighborhood and because of that, no student nightlife. There are no cheap apartments catered to student budgets. Instead, students are interspersed throughout the city, commuting every morning by car or bus. The idea of a house party seems foreign. Of course, at orientations, they don’t tell you anything about this. I was told housing would be easy to find and most students live together. Wrong!

            Karen and I arrived in Australia on the 28^th of January. We weren’t told we didn’t receive on-campus accommodation until the 25^th (good system right?). Thus we arrived in Townsville without a place to stay. Assuming there would be a student neighborhood, we weren’t concerned. Unfortunately, we then spent the next week scouring newspapers and realty websites looking for a place close to campus. We must have called 20 different people, but almost all of them were full. Nearly every place we found was miles from campus and/or way overpriced. In addition, apparently Townsville has never had study abroad students because every house required a lease to be signed for at least 6 months if not a year. We’re only in Townsville for a bit over 4 months, so signing a long-term lease was not an option. Needless to say, this was rather frustrating. We were only able to find a place because a realtor called us about a newly opened room. People moved out of it after Cyclone Yasi (can you blame them?) and we moved in two days later. It’s about a 40-minute walk from campus, and that’s close by student standards. And all because classes place too much emphasis on finals. Perhaps that’s a gross generalization, but the Aussies could learn a thing from the US about making college fun, in addition to productive.