What are the effects of the Australian Floods? Citation:"Wong Sees 'Tough Budget' for Australia on Floods, Currency" http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-04-09/wong-sees-tough-budget-for-australia-on-floods-currency.html Summary: This article talks about how Australia will be affected financially following the floods. It mentioned that the total cost of the damages are equal to roughly 1.5% of the country's A$1.3 trillion economy. It also talked about how Japan's earthquake affected Australia, because they receive many Japanese imports.Questions:1. What exactly does Japan have to do with this?2. How will the people rebuild and finance all this damage? 3. Are these figures in American dollars or Australian dollars? *Edit: Reposting because I forgot to share to WC group. Old post deleted.

What are the effects of the Australian Floods? Citation:"Australia flooding" http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/01/australian_flooding.html Summary: The flooding seems to have gotten worse, the number of people affected seems to have gone up. What's worse is that the water level is still going up, so things are still getting worse. Questions:1. Is this new information or old?2. when will the water go down? 3. What all is being done to help those affected? *Edit: reposting after I forgot to share to WC group, old posts deleted

What are the effects of the Australian Floods?Citation:"Australia floods threaten Queensland capital; 14 dead, dozens missing" http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/12/world/la-fg-australia-floods-20110112Summary: The city of Queensland has experienced some particularly bad flooding. The flood here has killed at least 14 people, with many more missing. Much of the flooding has come from a dam which was released to prevent its collapse. This damn was built to prevent flooding after Australia's last major flood in 1974. Questions: 1. Why didn't the dam work, was it not large enough? 2. How will the people rebuild after all this damage? 3. What all is being done to help those affected?

What are the effects of the Australian Floods? Citation:"Floods Peak, Leaving Ruin in Australian City"  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/world/asia/14australia.html Summary:The city of Brisbane has experienced some particularly bad flooding. The flood here has killed at least 15 people in one week. The city could remain underwater for several days. The flooding has been caused by extreme rains which caused the Brisbane and Bremer Rivers to rise up to 15 feet. Over 25,000 homes and 5,000 businesses have been flooded in Brisbane alone. Analysis:This article gave much more focused detail than previous articles I had read It really shows how much the devastation has affected individuals. There were several pictures as well which showed the scope of the flooding, including one of flood waters covering most of a basketball court. This really put it into perspective how bad the flood has been. It's extremely tragic to think about how many people have suffered from this flood.  Questions:1. What is the monetary cost of the flood in this area?2. How will the people rebuild after this? One woman wasn't insured for a flood, and is completely homeless.3. What all is being done to help those affected?

What are the effects of the Australian Floods? Citation:"Australian Prime Minister unveils new flood tax" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/gmt/9378347.stm Summary:Australia is creating a new tax to help the people affected by the flood. They've excluded those affected by the flood and those who make less than $50000 a year. They need to raise quite a bit of money, and this should get them about half way. The Australian Gov. is also cutting many costs to help raise more money Analysis: This is good news. They have a plan for raising the money they need. This new tax should be a good start. They were smart to tax only those making more than $50000 and who weren't affected by the flood because those aren't the people who need help.  Questions:1. How are they defining "affected by the flood"? That could include almost everybody.2. How much are they taxing each person?3. How do the Australian people feel about the tax?

What are the effects of the Australian Floods? Citation: "Water, water everywhere: strong storms flood Australian cities." Weekly Reader News Edition 4-6 [a Weekly Reader publication] 11 Feb. 2011: 2+. Student Edition. Web. 16 Feb. 2011. Summary: Australia is recovering from the worst flood it's seen in 50 years. The flooding was caused by heavy rain from a cyclone. Over 386,000 square miles of Australia is underwater. The flooding has affected over 200,000 people, and has cost at least five billion dollars (not sure if it's Australian or US) in damages. Analysis: This is simply shocking to me. I'm bothered by how little attention this has received in relation to the magnitude of what's going on. The amount of land that is underwater is larger in area than the state of Texas, and 200,000 people have been affected. By comparison, Hurricane Katrina left only 1,500 people homeless, and we're still talking about that six years later. Questions: 1. What are the environmental/ecological impacts of the flooding? 2. How will this affect Australia's economy/businesses? 3. What all is being done to help those affected?