Storms in Victoria

 Photo: Cam Hook ABC News site

Firefighters also rescued a girl who was clinging to a tree branch after being swept away at Ashwood in Melbourne's east.

So, some poor Australian girl was trying to go wherever she was going in Melbourne and got swept up by the flash floods and was clinging for her life to a tree.Thank heavens we grow trees here. Our rescue teams have saved 84 people in the Melbourne storms and have been out there again trying to manage what are insane conditions. One day it's okay, the next day it's as mad as hell. Storms and heavy rain hit Victoria , probably as a result of Yasi, and Melbourne is now scrambling. Someone on Twitter wanted us to find another word instead of disaster to describe what is happening in Australia, but it is a bloomin' disaster. We shall be renamed Ozlantis. It is crazy. Mad. Chaotic, and our emergency teams are doing it well but they are doing it hard. Normal people are being thrown into turmoil and life threatening situations. They are doing it well but they are doing it hard. I have nothing but admiration for Australians at this point in time. Their capacity to cope, manage and carry on has been inspirational. We need the water because we have had years and years of drought. We are just going to have to see if we can channel water better in times of massively heavy downpours. We need to get messages out better about flash flooding. Would they have had any warning? Would they have known what it meant? That's the thing. If you are used to certain conditions and suddenly they become extreme, you may not actually understand the capacity of extreme weather to manifest itself in a way that will affect and harm you. Experience is a great teacher and speaking of teaching, we are going to have to develop some teaching packages which can be available on the internet so that people can be disaster ready. It is a disaster but we have demonstrated we have a resilience which we might not have thought we had. We have a capacity to overcome adversity which is quite impressive .These adverse weather conditions are testing us fully. We need weather stations in walls! We need to keep our eyes on the weather and our safety.