Keith, I feel for your plight down under. Out in the American West, its been quite bad over the past few years as well, although not nearly as bad as you described below. Here in the SF Bay area we've had only one rainfall since late April. While it is usually dry here between May & November (summer up here), its not normally this dry.
On Thu, 5 Dec 2002, Keith Antoine wrote: > I have been busy and away for a while, nothing to do with computers. > One of the reasons was to try help out in the country, but its a losing > battle. > > We have not had any decent rain for 12 months and now there are towns that are > going to run dry before xmas. The drought is the worst in 100 years maybe > longer. Suicides amongst property owners is high and walk-offs are the norm. > There are places that have had no wet for 40 years, but most places are > destroying stock or have reduced it to paltry levels. > > Sydney is in the grip of nasty fires with varying gusting winds that turn on > the firefighters, they lost a water tender today. A snmall comunity near > Sydney lost 15 homes last night and tonight is predicted to be worse. > Everything is tinder dry and I am talking 75% or more of Australia. > Some fire were started by careless smokers throwing butts away, so they have > made is 10 yrs jail if caught doing just that. There are also arsonist > children, they are being charged as adults. > > > They have projected a loss of 53% in the GNP for the next 6 months, whilst > produce in the stores is vanishing and prices are skyrocketting. Ther is no > sign of relief, yesterday was 38 here with 90% humidity, today 36 and gusty > NW winds from the Solomons. > > The weather predictions are that we will not see rain before April/May, by > that time ther will be nothing green and no animals. We are ssing birds that > we do not see normally coming to the coast for feed. Roos and Emus are also > migrating to the coast and causing accidents on the roads, hitting a roo at > night very often writes the small vehicle off; kills too. I actually saw a > dingo 5 mins from our house a couple of days ago, that can be frightening > with small kids around. > > There have been prayer meetings for rain and even had an 'Indian' do a rain > dance all to no avail, it is being blamed on El Nino, but one wonders where > it will all end, but water is at a premium 'liquid gold' literally. > -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lonni J Friedman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo http://netllama.ipfox.com _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc -> http://www.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
