Getting stuff done

This is why we can be proud to be Australians:

"As the floodwaters neared their peak yesterday, the people of Brisbane could have been forgiven for panicking. Fortunately, the opposite happened.
Rarely can an emergency mass movement of people have happened so swiftly and with so little fuss. People rolled up their sleeves and got to work...
Thousands sat on street corners until the early hours of yesterday morning, mingling with refugees from nearby suburbs and neighbours they had never met. They watched the sluggish brown tide slowly rise - eerie, a bit frightening, but not the end of the world...
Yesterday volunteers were hard at work - the organisation managing volunteering said 11,000 people had already officially registered for clean-up duties, but the actual figure would be far higher, because most people just turned up and set to the task. Often a person in a sandbagging chain would not know the name of the person next to them."

Queensland

Toowoomba
Warren McErlean sees a water gauge on a street rise 20 centimetres in 10 seconds on Monday afternoon. He attempts to save the Rice family...

Jordan Rice, 13 years old, insisted his brother Blake, aged 10, be rescued first. He and his mother Donna, 43, do not make it.

''I thought I would push it backwards but by the time I walked 20 metres, it [the water] was up on the bonnet and coming up the windscreen.''
Mr McErlean grabbed a rope, tied one end to a post, the other around his waist and set out to rescue the woman and two boys but the fast-moving water swept him downstream.
Another rescuer, known only as Chris, pulled Mr McErlean to safety before tying the rope to himself and approaching the car to grab Jordan.
But Jordan wanted his brother to go first so Chris took Blake, handing him to Mr McErlean part way across before heading back to the car.
''I had the boy in one hand, the rope in the other. I wasn't going to let go but then the torrent came through and was pulling us down,'' Mr McErlean said.
''Then this great big tall fellow just came out of nowhere, bear hugged us and ripped us out of the water.
''When I got back I turned to look at the guy [Chris]. He looked at me and we knew it was over. The rope snapped and the car just flipped.''
Chris, who had been holding Jordan's hand until it was torn from him, flew metres in the air before locking his legs around a post in the centre of the road, said Mr McErlean.
''The others were just gone, just disappeared,'' he said.

South East Queensland

Clive Palmer, one of Australia's richest men, uses his private helicopter to rescue 60 people from floodwaters in and around his horse stud farm. 80 horses drown in their field.

"This is all very sad and distressing but the welfare of our people must come first. They have been traumatised and it's vital that they are rehabilitated. There will be a cremation and burial for the horses," Mr Palmer said.

Grantham in the Lockyer Valley

"...in "lock down", with police and the coroner going from building to building looking for survivors."

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says "This is a valley that has been completely and utterly devastated".

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is on the ground. Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wades through water to help his constituents recover property.

15 confirmed dead
61 unaccounted for
4000 in evac centres
75% of Queensland is a natural disaster zone
120,000 homes and businesses without power

Deep Water

"I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of drought and flooding rains, I love her far horizons, I love her jewel sea, Her beauty and her terror - The wide brown land for me."

- Dorothea MacKellar 1906