Wet and Windy!

Wind is making the palms dance and the pool overflowed two days ago. Since then we’ve had 235 mm of rain and the winds apparently exceeded a 100 km/hr. At high tide today Brisbane CBD will once again flood although not as badly as in 2011. Telstra stars; Hundreds of thousands in communication blackout as Telstra outage leaves everything north of Gladstone without phone, internet or Triple Zero access leaving half of state in the dark. I have a daughter at a retreat near Maleny just north of Brisbane and a long way south of Gladestone who had to use her Optus work phone to contact us as her personal Telstra is out of service. The high winds are unusual as cyclones seldom get this far south but Oswald still had some punch as it hit Brisbane.  Trees blown across power lines has put thousands in the dark including my son who has just arrived to recharge his phone. Another daughter with a premie baby is getting out of hospital and taking her new son home today. Access to her suburb will be difficult but possible as the Ipswich area starts to go under with a peak expected at midnight. All in all, just another January in Brisbane.