Remembering the Night of Noah: Flood Memory and Townsville's Floods of 1998 and 2019
Flood memory in Townsville is strong, but this does not align with the city’s capacity to live sustainably with floods.
Flood memory in Townsville is strong, but this does not align with the city’s capacity to live sustainably with floods.
The North Sea flood of 1953 caused widespread damage and approximately 2,400 fatalities in the UK, the Netherlands, and Belgium. As devastating as it was, the flood also triggered many changes in how the countries surrounding the North Sea manage their flood risk, including the development of improved warning systems and various protection schemes.
Today, the Storm Flood of 1962 forms an integral part of local and national memory culture. Public commemoration events, monuments, and media coverage assure that the disaster is not forgotten.
The flooding in Singapore in 1954 was one of the most significant floods on the island in the twentieth century.
In 1975, construction began for the Thames Barrier, a moveable flood defense located on the River Thames, downstream of central London in the United Kingdom.
The St. Petersburg flood of 1824, in which the level of the river Neva rose to the 4 meter 20 centimeter mark, is the greatest in the history of the city. The city did not recover from the destructive effects of the flood until the mid-1830s.
The 2019 flooding of Townsville in northern Australia proved that Queensland’s dry tropical environment is a temperamental master.
Brisbane’s 1974 floods substantially damaged Brisbane, accelerating the government’s plans for a second flood mitigation dam.
The Great Flood of 1962 was the most devastating natural disaster to strike Germany in the twentieth century. In Hamburg, over one hundred thousand people were trapped by the water, and 315 people died, despite massive rescue operations.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, massive floods regularly threatened cities and settlements along the Danube River. The introduction of wide-reaching telegraph networks enabled Habsburg authorities in Vienna to protect the most important city of the empire.