Melbourne’s just had it’s biggest single-day downpour on record (since 1856 or so). The previous mega-downpour was around 106mm in the 1960’s. While this has trashed trains, flooded streets and washed out houses, so far it’s not had any major impact on me at home or work.
At home, my apartment’s survived OK with not a leak in sight. I was woken up during the night by rain hitting my bedroom windows – a rather spectacular feat given they’re off a balcony that’s somewhat sheltered by the rest of the building. To achieve this, the rain was heading pretty much horizontally for a fair distance.
I’m hoping we don’t get a repeat of the Tree Branch Madness that happened back in September last year. A previous mega-wind/rain session weakened a tree out the front of my apartment which dropped 1/3 of itself over the carpark (and a neighbour’s car).
On the way in to the office this morning, I figured I’d head up the road along side of the beach. Heading out we had trams stopped in the middle of the street on both Chapel and Carlisle streets. There were branches everywhere and one tree on Chapel had broken a water main as it fell so water was gushing everywhere.
Heading up the beach road in bright sunlight, the bay was filled with dark, rushing water. Waves were coming into the beach from the south but not many white caps out there. Lots of palm fronds everywhere on the road and I often encountered large puddles of standing water, some of which blocked an entire lane. On the north side of St Kilda Beach there was a yacht beached on its side, the keel ripped away by its trip up the rocks and sand. Further up at Middle Park the waves were still breaking over the sea wall, pushing water over the path & cycle track (yes, morning joggers/walkers were out and generally managing to avoid getting too wet here).
In at the office we had a few leaks here and there – annoying in a newly rennovated building but to be expected given the generally rushed and shoddy work that’s often found on modern constructions (I’ve seen many newly constructed apartments around St Kilda and it’s not uncommon to find them falling apart within the first year or so) Half the staff weren’t in today and a few meetings were cancelled. Apparently the authorities were recommending that people avoid going to the city due to problems with public transport, flooding, etc.
The cops were out near our building blocking traffic heading out on Dynon Rd – they were there all day so whatever was causing the problem, it must have been big.
So yeah, lots of interesting stuff but, for me, nothing major – very happy about that…