[mangrovedutch (Dutch)]

Just to weigh in on the subject - we are people who think that we are smart and can control mother nature. I have sad news and the concequences are obvious. We live say 80-100 years and this planet is how old? We don't have a concept of what it is like to live to 500 years old, and data keeping has only been around for a few hundred years. In the Civil and Surveying game you work according to Q100, which translates to a 1 in 100 year flood. I assume that they use the data from the 1890's flood for this.
Things are going to get worse, with the population expansion and all the new sub-division popping up with their storm water systems funneling into nearby creeks at a high velocity.
We are still to see a decent cyclone this season, one has crossed the Qld coast this year as a Category 1. They are expecting 6-8 to cross the Qld coast this season, and the way the low systems are travelling this season, we will see at least one to get to the Fraser coast. For those interested, have a look at the CSIRO ocean current site and have a look how warm the waters are off Fraser, and how the currents are running from north Qld. A category 3 hanging off Fraser, ground that simply cannot absorb any more 500mm of rain - you do the maths.
I'm not writing this as a scary topic, just being realistic. And there is simply no point blaming what ever political party or authority, they can't and WILL not control Mother Nature. Humans are smart (all our engineers come from university with a head full of information that at best is based on a couple of hundred years), but not that smart that they can fortell and prepare for natural disasters and the force of Mother Nature

Regards, Dutch