The Gorge in Flood

(This small clip gives the sound, but doesn't do the full spectacle justice.)

No photos yet, but a description at least demands writing: after work, in the late afternoon grading to twilight, I did as many good burghers of Launceston, and stopped half-way home, parked the car, then walked up the cliffside path from the King's Bridge to the First Basin, up through the Cataract Gorge, the raging flood-waters of the South Esk spilling down the descent in a magnificent, thundering spectacle of churning silt-laden water, the very air tasting of earth and salt, as the surging waters shot down from further upstream, through the deep-chiselled defile, roaring over the huge boulders normally seen below, but for now submerged in the sudden maelstrom...

Casting an eye over the ferocious scene, I read again the following verses (3b-5) of Psalm 123:

Cum irasceretur furor eorum in nos, * fortisan aqua absorbuisset nos.

Torrentem pertransivit anima nostra: * fortisan pertransisset anima nostra aquam intolerabilem.

When their fury was enkindled against us, * perhaps the waters had swallowed us up.

Our soul hath passed through a torrent: * perhaps our soul had passed through a water insupportable.

How glorious to be safe and secure, calmly beholding the raging torrent from an eyrie of security! Heaven must be like that.

And again, from Psalm 92, the opening of festal Lauds (verses 3-4):

Elevaverunt flumina, Domine, * elevaverunt flumina vocem suam.

Elevaverunt flumina fluctus suos, * a vocibus aquarum multarum.

Mirabiles elationes maris: * mirabilis in altis Dominus.

The floods have lifted up, O Lord: * the floods have lifted up their voice.

The floods have lifted up their waves, * with the noise of many waters.

Wonderful are the surges of the sea: * wonderful is the Lord on high.

The very euphony of these words paints a picture of the billowing waves, and of the voices of the many waters. Blessed be the Lord Who made them, orders them and ever makes them be. May all His wondrous works praise Him:

Benedicite, maria et flumina, Domino: laudate et superexaltate eum in sæcula.

O ye seas and rivers, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.

(Daniel iii, 78)

While the Trevallyn Dam further upstream has been shedding water over the spillway on and off for some weeks now (and the level of water in the Gorge has risen, fallen, and risen again), now, with all the runoff from the past days of flooding rains in the upcountry gathering and coming through, a prodigious display of nature's strength is underway. The green grassy sward around the swimming pool by the First Basin is now almost wholly submerged, the pool itself far underwater, and I walked in the dimming light by the water's edge as it foamed and churned and threw waves toward my feet, while all along this strange new shore huge driftwood piles built up. Out in the Basin itself (which even at its usual level is a lake over 200m deep), enormous logs, whole trees, could be seen being carried by on tremendous waves.

Standing on the "swing bridge" as we call it, the pedestrian suspension bridge at the debouchment of the upper reaches of the Gorge into the First Basin, it was astounding to behold without fear the giant rush of speeding waters below, sending up such fine mist that the handrail was damp. Sublime!

Even downstream, where the Gorge empties its waters to swell the Tamar, boats and the rowing club pontoon have been moved out of the way, since the forecast flow of 1200 cubic metres of water a second is well being achieved. (Yet this is only a quarter the size of the Great Flood of 1929!)

Still, the peak isn't expected till mid-day to-morrow. [The eventual peak of 1100 cubic metres per second came early Saturday morning.]

It's been years since the last decent flood.

An Eightieth Anniversary - Missed

I've been idly speculating on what culinary specialities have marked the last days: I have certainly enjoyed hot cross buns at breakfast and/or lunch; and Good Friday marked the reappearance (after no breakfast, two buns only for lunch, and apart from that only cups of tea or coffee) of a family favourite, curiously otherwise only served on Christmas Eve - fish baked in individual ramekins, these having been greased with butter, and then the fish immersed in cream, with almonds and finely chopped onion, salt and much pepper on top. This morning, after Mass and prior to a good long walk around the Cataract Gorge up to Duck Reach and back, I had breakfast out, with coffee and a plate of mushrooms cooked in butter, salt and pepper, plus English muffins and a bit of English spinach (it is Easter Week, after all).

******

But I really meant to blog on an anniversary missed, which I only discovered to-day after reading Health, Wealth and Tribulation: Launceston's Cataract Gorge, a copy of which I bought this morning (at the café). Perhaps my being away to Hobart last Sunday had meant that I missed the significance of the date, but strangely the local papers apparently missed it too, and I certainly read Monday's news.

Of what the eightieth anniversary? Black Saturday, 6th April 1929: the Great Flood. Mention "the Flood" in Launceston, and anyone will know what happened that dismal day.

The rainstorm came on Wednesday 3rd April: such a deluge! 500 mm - 200 inches - of rain fell in the high country over the ensuing three days. Every river and stream in northern Tasmania swelled to bursting. Come Thursday afternoon, the dam above the mining town of Derby broke, and the raging floodwaters drowned fourteen. On Thursday evening, eight were drowned - seven of them children, six of them from one family - when their car plunged into the Gawler River when the driver failed to see in the rain and darkness that the bridge had been destroyed. God rest their souls.

On Friday, Launceston prepared for the oncoming flood down the North and South Esk Rivers; but most of the folk in lowlying Inveresk and Invermay, behind levee banks that enclosed their suburbs (drained swampland, actually below high tide level to this day), refused to evacuate despite warnings. The rivers rose and rose. At 11pm all power failed - the city's pride, its municipal power station at Duck Reach (established 1895) was submerged in the onrushing waters filling up the Gorge. About 4,000 cubic metres a second (140.000 cubic feet per second) was surging downstream. At 1am Saturday, the town clock began to ring continuously, the pre-arranged signal of disaster: the levees were overtopped, the suburbs flooded, and 4000 had to be rescued, first by cars, then by boats. Miraculously, no one perished; but many lost everything, and had no insurance.

Amusingly, in the aftermath, which was well-organized and funded by generous donations both locally and throughout the Commonwealth, many of those whose houses were condemned were temporarily relocated to what was unblushingly called a "concentration camp" at Elphin!

I must say I'm glad my sister has recently sold her home in Invermay and relocated to higher ground: the City Council has been ineffectually squabbling for years about fixing the levee banks, which are so decrepit as to be actually sliding into the river in places, and which one fears would not sustain a new flood threat some eighty years on. When New Orleans was devastated, I think many in Launceston felt vaguely worried. The Council, true to form, sent a fact-finding mission there to see what could be learnt about levee banks and what happens to them!

As it is, the Tamar (the estuary formed where the North and South Esk meet where the city lies) is filling so full of mud that I've never seen it so bad, and I grew up here: it certainly wasn't this bad 2 years ago. It ought be explained that the Tamar is tidal, with a range of over 3 metres, and the rivers bring down about 39,000 tons of silt every year, so without continual dredging it soon becomes a disgusting sight at low tide. Of course, a flood like the 1929 one would at least solve the mud problem...

Singing again

Since the choir still hasn't resumed its normal schedule, for his sins this blogger had again to psalm-tone the Proper by himself, plus lead the Asperges, Missa de Angelis and Credo III, and the hymns "Firmly I believe and truly" as the processional, Ave maris stella at Offertory, Adoro te at Communion, and "Faith of our fathers" for the recessional. Rosemary and one of the choristers from the mixed choir joined me, thankfully, at the last minute.


At least it wasn't as hot today as it had been, and the Pro. was bearable, not stifling: nonetheless Fr Rowe did as he'd planned, and took off his chasuble as well as maniple to preach, beginning with that arresting joke "Isn't it lovely and cool - the fires of hell and purgatory are MUCH hotter..."


He went on to say he hoped there weren't many present in the first three categories of Catholics enumerated in today's Gospel by our Lord (mea culpa; at least I'd been shriven again), and hoped we weren't among the *lukewarm and lazy* who didn't bother to come to yesterday's Holy Hour for the Conversion of Australia. Ouch!


Don't get me wrong! I much prefer a priest, like Fr Rowe, who reiterates the need for us to strive to save our souls by God's grace, to the sort who let one slumber in indifference.


At least I finished Matins from the Breviary before Mass, and got Lauds done in stages before, during! and after it. On to the Little Hours...


The Church this Sexagesima puts before us Noe and the Ark, that sole refuge in the mighty flood, figure of the Church extra quam nulla salus, at Matins; St Paul, Doctor of the Gentiles, in the Collect and Epistle (connecting nicely with the feast of his Conversion on Friday - in the modern Office, St John Chrysostom, read that day, well put it that the history of that great Apostle shews us to what heights graced human nature may reach, holding him a great exemplar and inspiration for all); and the Gospel Parable of the Sower as alluded to above.