There is a particular shade of brown that defines Queensland’s relationship with water—not the crisp blue of postcards, but the churning, debris-laden ochre of rivers in revolt. The floods that regularly swallow this state aren’t natural disasters so much as seasonal houseguests who’ve overstayed their welcome. Each new inundation carries the weight of history and the whisper of futures yet to come, revealing uncomfortable truths about memory, adaptation, and the stubborn human insistence on rebuilding where we should retreat.
The Flood That Wasn’t a Surprise
Meteorologists saw the rain coming weeks out—a slow-motion catastrophe scrolling across satellite maps. The monsoon trough parked itself like a drunk at closing time, dumping rainfall measured not in millimeters but in bathtubs. Yet what followed wasn’t just a weather event; it was a masterclass in collective denial:
- Farmers who’d gambled on a dry harvest watched tractors become reef fish
- Suburbanites in floodplain McMansions suddenly remembered their “water views” worked both ways
- Local Councils scrambled to defend levee systems last upgraded when Joh Bjelke-Petersen was premier
The real tragedy wasn’t the inundation, but the theater of shock that accompanied it. Queenslanders have flood amnesia—a condition where the trauma of the last deluge fades just in time for the next one to feel unprecedented.
The Geography of Water Memory
Queensland’s landscape is a palimpsest of forgotten floods:
- Brisbane 1893: When the river rose 8 meters and steamboats plied Queen Street
- 1974: The flood that birthed the Wivenhoe Dam (and subsequent false security)
- 2011: The reservoir that became a liability as engineers struggled to outthink the weather
This year’s waters didn’t break records—they simply reminded everyone that records are temporary. The Brisbane River, that sluggish serpent through the city’s heart, demonstrated its perfect indifference to human timescales. What took decades to build was erased in hours:
- Roads dissolving like sugar cubes
- Sewer lines performing reverse alchemy—toilets becoming fountains
- The Brisbane Riverwalk detaching like a loose tooth to float merrily downstream
The Economics of Wet Desperation
Floodwaters don’t discriminate, but their aftermath does:
- The Wealthy treat it as an inconvenience—helicopters ferry groceries to riverside mansions
- The Middle Class spend years fighting insurers over “storm surge” versus “riverine flooding” clauses
- The Poor in low-lying rentals lose everything not nailed down (and much that was)
Businesses play their own survival lotteries:
- The Brewery that pivots to making sandbags
- The Bookstore where water sorts inventory by buoyancy
- The McDonalds that becomes an impromptu disaster HQ
Tourism ads boasting “beautiful one day, perfect the next” take on grim irony when the third day brings military helicopters.
The Mythology of Resilience
Politicians love to praise Queensland’s “resilience”—a term that masks systemic failures:
- Development Approvals granted like lollies in flood zones
- Drainage Systems designed for 1980s rainfall patterns
- Disaster Funding that’s really just a down payment on the next disaster
The real resilience lives elsewhere:
- In Mud Army volunteers scrubbing strangers’ walls with bleach
- In Cane Farmers replanting with fingers crossed
- In Indigenous Elders pointing out that the high ground they were moved from remains dry
The Climate Subtext
Nobody wants to say it during the crisis, but the elephant in the room wears swim trunks:
- Warmer oceans → More evaporation → Heavier rain bombs
- 1% increase in atmospheric moisture = 7% increase in extreme rainfall
- The “100-year flood” concept is actuarial fiction now
Insurance companies understand—premiums in some postcodes have become polite refusals to insure.
The Rebuild Paradox
Even as the waters recede, the contradictions return:
- Homeowners demand better flood mitigation while opposing higher rates
- Developers lobby to rezone “temporary” evacuation routes
- Engineers propose Dutch-style water management to a polity that can’t agree on daylight savings
The cleanup follows its own rituals:
- The mold bloom that arrives right when hope returns
- The donated furniture that never quite fits
- The PTSD that surfaces with each forecast of rain
Final Thought:
Queensland floods aren’t acts of God they’re audits. The ledgers balance in submerged living rooms and ruined crops, revealing what we value (short-term growth) and what we neglect (long-term survival). The waters will come again. The question is whether we’ll still be pretending not to see them coming.