Thinking of Queensland

As you maybe know we have cousins in Queensland and we have been thinking of them as we watched the reports of flooding on the television. This is an email we had yesterday from Bill and Margaret.

Happy New Year to the Strickley clan. Thank you for your concern, we as a family have not been affected but the devastation has been widespread. We are in north Queensland where the rain has been heavy but it is expected here this time of year. Linda and Claude and family are here for the festive season so all the Australian family are together. We had five and a half inches of rain Christmas eve and were cut off by flood waters for Christmas day but worse we lost power for all of the day and Boxing day, t'was a bit hard keeping the drinks cool with the temp at 33 celsius!
In our old farm area they have been cut off by flood water for two weeks and I suspect about the same time without power, with no chance of a milk tanker accessing the farms so those who can milk will be running it down the drain.
The marina where our boat would have been had it been in the water is safe but the marina further up the river in Bundaberg was completely destroyed and we understand all the yachts, about 70 were lost. State wide the overall damage to roads, crops, livestock, housing and general infrastructure is so far uncalculated as it's not over yet but will be in billions.