Last night we watched with horror as the television news delivered pictures of a raging flood destroying cars in the main streets of Toowoomba. People were swept away and there were deaths from this instance of nature on the rampage.
No doubt proponents of global warming will claim that this was an event caused by our abuse of the air we breathe and the pollution we cause, but an examination of the records will show that nature freaks are part and parcel of the storm cycle we have always lived with.
We live - and we learn, as evidenced by a similar storm that hit Wollongong in 1998. That produced pictures of children being rescued from roof tops and cars washed away and destroyed - but fortunately no loss of life. In the aftermath, a number of properties at high risk were resumed, demolished and the land they occupied is now parkland.
Sometime in the future the risk lottery will again deliver Wollongong's escarpment a rain storm of unprecedented volume and we will have to deal with flooding of homes and the destruction of cars and other vehicles. It may be less than 1998 - but there is also a chance that it may be double the volume of water that particular storm delivered.
We tend to forget our history - but a glance through the records of yesteryear will produce the evidence that nature delivers super storms on a regular basis. It always has - and it always will !
Those with an agenda will try and tag such events to prove whatever pet theory is in vogue at the time !
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