[thomas697]

If we had a day/week where everyone from BEA united to discuss music, politics, religion etc. in the same place, What city would would it be?

I've entertained the thought for a little while!
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Having a family is the kind of thing that could be held against a person

[Wombi]

it's a nice idea but who would have the money to do that?

[Wombi]

oh wait for some reason i read it as a day every week

[GARY]

Miami Florida U.S.A.
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I owe $100,000 and wasted 4 years of my life.

And all I got was this silly hat



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[cartoken]

I guess New York is a perfect place for that purpose.

[GARY]

[GARY]

[thomas697]

Yeah I'm about 1800km from Cyclone Yasi.

The issue with Cyclone Yasi and the lack of coverage it got in my opinion is based on the following.

Around December the Brisbane/Ipswich area had some pretty high scale flash floods, they didn't cause a lot of problems just made it hard to get around a little bit. This got a little bit of coverage

But at the start of January, Toowoomba got hit by what was referred to some as an inland Tsunami. Killing 12 people on the day. The amazing thing about Toowoomba is, is that it's about 300m above sea level. It's one of those places that just can't flood. so this was fairly amazing. So all the towns at the bottom of the range of Toowoomba got absolutely decimated. the towns dont even exist anymore.

So as Toowoomba is so high and had that much water .. (sweeping houses away etc.) It was just a matter of time before the water came down to Brisbane eventually flooding the CBD and all major cities and towns surrounding it. This caused Billions of dollars in damage and I think so far around 30 people have died from the floods to this date. The other contributing factor to the floods was the constant rain and the necessary release of all the major dams. Which just exacerbated the whole situation.

This was major news nation wide for the better part of two weeks. By the time it had been covered to death all the major reporters went back to Melbourne and Sydney (also important to note that at this point Melbourne was now being affect by floods) The nation had pretty much taken all they could, so when Cyclone Yasi was announced, it was just too much. They covered it, told everyone how big it was, And most importantly no one was killed, which usually hinders a story's power. Even everyone in South East QLD was still in their houses clearing out all their furniture on their lawns and even today lots of people around Brisbane haven't been able to get to their homes, many of which are going to have to be torn down.

Hopefully that brings some sort of light to the issue
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Having a family is the kind of thing that could be held against a person

[GARY]

[thomas697]

I couldn't believe it .. I wasn't even in Brisbane at the time of the floods I had to watch it all on TV and couldn't comprehend anything I was seeing. I was on Fraser Island, no phone reception or anything like, couldn't even call anyone to see if they were ok, it was rough to say the least.

The magnitude of Cyclone Yasi and the fact that no one died really is a credit to everyone in the area. They got hit by Cyclone Larry about 5 years ago, so they all knew the drill. Another thing to remember though, is American towns and cities are a lot more densely populated than Australian towns and cities. Incredibly more dense in fact. So a storm of equal magnitude in Australia and America at the same time, mathematically the American equivalent of the storm will see more casualties. Look at Katrina vs Yasi for example. As Australian's we don't take that for granted.

I dont even think they can rebuild in those towns you mentioned. There are still countless bodies that haven't been recovered. So the towns are still considered crime/investigation scenes and will be for some time.
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Having a family is the kind of thing that could be held against a person