Thank you to all our family and friends who have called or asked how we are going amongst all the flooding in Queensland. A lot has happened in the past 7 days, so let me walk you through some of it.

Background

A series of floods hit eastern Australia in December 2010 and January 2011. Many of the affected areas have been in Queensland, but the flooding has also impacted parts of New South Wales and Victoria.

Large parts of Queensland received much heavier than usual rainfall throughout the (southern) spring and Christmas 2010 periods. Around 7 January 2011, water management authorities were forced to start release thousands of gigalitres of rainwater from the Wivenhoe Dam into the Brisbane River, in order to avoid the dam breaching its banks.

10-13 January

Toowoomba, in the Darling Downs area west of Brisbane, was hit by flash-flooding after more than 160mm of rain fell in 36 hours to 10 January 2011. Much of that water travelled down the range towards Brisbane, to join the water that had been released in to the Brisbane River from Wivenhoe Dam. While the controlled releases presented some risk of flooding to Brisbane, the further rainfall in the Darling Downs and Brisbane Valley made flooding a certainty.

On Tuesday morning, several office buildings in the Brisbane CBD started to evacuate. It took Anna and me more than two hours to reach home by bus in the heavy rain. We quickly packed a few clothes and important papers, and headed to higher ground. Fortunately, we were able to stay with friends far enough away from the now-raging Brisbane River.

By Tuesday evening, huge areas of Brisbane’s southern and western suburbs, including West End, Rocklea, Milton and South Bank were flooding. My friend Tyler took a number of photos of South Bank and the Brisbane CBD on January 12, January 13 and January 14 and posted them to Facebook (login required). CBC.ca also featured some of Tyler’s photos and videos (no login needed).

Bronwyn has amazing photos of the Eagle St and Riverside areas of the Brisbane CBD (Coffee Club is on the second level at Eagle St pier – the restaurants below have flooded to the ceiling), while Mike’s house was badly flooded (login required).

Our suburb of Bulimba was expected to flood, and as our house is a mere two streets from the river, we did not hold out much hope of it staying dry. On Wednesday morning, we went back to the house to put as much of our furniture up as high as possible, and snuck a few photos of the raging river.

The water started to cover the roads just before noon, so we said goodbye and good luck to the house.

On Thursday morning, we watched in frustration as the TV news helicopters buzzed all over the southern and western suburbs and the Brisbane CBD. The images were unreal! But we could not figure out why the news seemed to refuse to mention any areas beyond the CBD.

We drove to the house, and were shocked to discover that our house had been strangely and miraculously untouched! Water had flowed up to the industrial property next to us, but only soaked the grass and roads.

A number of properties upriver from us in Bulimba and Hawthorne were not so lucky. You can see in my photos from 13 January that there are a number of new “lakes” surrounding many properties and lying across roadways.

Why was our house not flooded on January 12?

The Brisbane River becomes wider and deeper when its flows reach the Bulimba area. So the main threat of flooding on our property is a storm tide. This is caused by wind and atmospheric pressure, such as tropical cyclones or storms, that produce higher than usual tide levels. In short, we are most likely to be flooded by water that has been pushed up-river by storm tides and strong winds, and less by the volume of water that flows down-river.

The storm tide scenario happened in Brisbane a big way in January 1974 and February 1893. The river’s peak in the ’74 flood measured 6.6 metres at the Port Office gauge and approximately 5.5 metres at the city gauge. That level likely meant that our house in Bulimba was under 2-3 metres of water.

The flood modeling for 13-14 January 2011 indicated that the river would exceed its 1974 levels. But very fortunately for us, the rain stopped on 11 January and we did not have a cyclone pushing water up-river.

What’s next?

The Big Wet 2011 is not over yet. There are a number of cyclones to the northeast of Queensland, and the next king tide is expected to hit Brisbane on Friday, 21 January. Meanwhile, the rainy season usually runs through to March. This is all the better reason to (finally) finish my disaster/storm kit!

On Friday, 8 October 2010 the Supreme Court of Canada handed down three judgments which say that an accused person does not have an unrestricted right to consult with their lawyer during police questioning.

The SCC considered three separate cases in which the suspect asked, mid-interrogation, to consult with his lawyer again. Section 10 (b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that “Everyone has the right on arrest or detention to retain and instruct counsel without delay and to be informed of that right.” But a 6:3 majority of judges found that providing the accused with an initial phone call to a lawyer is sufficient to protect the person’s Charter right to counsel, unless and until something changes during police questioning to justify another phone call. The degree of change that will be needed remains an open question.

It may be that the average Canadian will have a sense that rights have been removed through these decisions. But the (false) impression that someone has a right to have a lawyer present during questioning might come from American TV shows that depict police issuing Miranda warnings to suspects. What the SCC is saying is that a right to counsel during interrogation has never existed under Canadian law.

I have yet to read each of the judgments in full. If you want to get a head-start, read R v Sinclair [2010] SCC 35, R v McCrimmon [2010] SCC 36, and R v Willier [2010] SCC 37.

The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star have articles on the SCC decisions.

I’m a little behind in my podcast listening, but one radio program that I enjoy is Future Tense, hosted by Antony Funnell on ABC Radio National.

Funnell recently interviewed futurist Richard Watson, the author of the book Future Files, and Matt Moore, director of Innotecture and chair of the NSW Knowledge Management Forum. They explored the question, “Was the idea of the paperless office a flawed prediction?”

I work in a law office which consumes an astounding amount of paper. I try to print only when necessary (and when I do, to print in either double sided or two-up double sided layout), but it is amazing to see how many more issues that I can easily spot in a draft contract as compared with reading on-screen. For that reason, I found myself nodding along with Matt Moore when he observed that to properly review documents, he needs to print them in order to “absorb” them properly. Richard Watson made a similar point when he talked about editing the draft for a new book and spreading paper all around the office floor in order to work out the flow of ideas from chapter to chapter.

Listen to the episode podcast – or read the transcript (paper or on-screen?) for The Paperless Office (15 July 2010). I think that you will find it interesting.

Facebook is a better place now that I have banished Farmville updates from my news feed.

You can do it too: Mouseover the offending Farmville update and click “Hide”. Then choose “Hide Farmville” (rather than hiding altogether the updates from your good friend). Gold!

Repeat for “Mafia Wars” and any other applications that fill your news feed unnecessarily.

Are you inviting someone to burgle your home?

The website Please Rob Me has a straightforward message: Your next instant update on Gowalla, Tweet on Twitter or “I’m at …” status update on Facebook is a broadcast alert to the whole world that you are not at home. And that could make your house a target for burglary.

PleaseRobMe.com

Of course, most people do not share information online about their street address or whether they live alone. But it can be straightforward to piece together enough information by using the surname and city from an online profile and then accessing the local white pages directory.

Whether you share information online and the specific details that you share, are up to you. Sites like Please Rob Me are a good reminder about the implications of sharing tidbits of information that seem innocuous on their own but can can reveal quite specific information when taken together.

Forbes magazine’s Velocity blog, CNET’s The Social and the Canadian privacy commissioner have each profiled PleaseRobMe.com.

(In legal terms, “robbery” is the act taking of the property of someone from their person or in their immediate presence, against their will, by the use of violence or intimidation. “Burglary” is the act of breaking into and entering a house or building with intent to steal. But I suppose that “Please Burgle Me” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.)

On seeing photos from my admission, a friend Paul asked why the statue of Themis outside the Supreme Court in Brisbane has no blindfold. His question prompted me to do a little digging.

The Greek goddess Themis became one of the Oracles of Delphi on account of her ability to foresee the future. That led also to her being recognised as the goddess of divine justice. Themis is often depicted without a blindfolded because, capable of clear-sightedness and prophecy, she had no need to be blinded.

Justitia, Roman goddess of justice, is often depicted holding a sword and scales, but not always. And interestingly, she has been represented as “blind” only from about the end of the fifteenth century.

Themis at Law Courts, Brisbane

The Lady (of) Justice in the Western tradition sometimes wears a blindfold (perhaps more so in Europe, with the Roman influence on the development of many countries?) but more often she appears without one. She usually carries a sword and scales. The Lady is draped in flowing robes, is mature but not old, and is less frequently referred to as Themis. She symbolizes the fair and equal administration of the law, without corruption, avarice, prejudice, or favour.

The statue that appears outside the Law Courts complex in Brisbane is Themis. The Hon Paul de Jersey AC, Chief Justice of Queensland, gave a speech to the Brisbane Club (2001) titled “Themis and her Themes.” It is an easy read.