As the rest of the world well knows by now, a surprising amount of Australia was under water last week.  It’s been called a 1 in 100 year flood, and will change the course of social, economic, political and natural history in the country for many years to come.  I’ve often found myself adjacent to historic events of disastrous proportions.  Throughout my childhood I saw all four seasons in California: fires, floods, earthquakes and riots.  I watched the faces of great cities change as houses slid into the ocean, highways collapsed on themselves and two of the worlds tallest buildings crumbled to the ground.

Though I’m not one to glue myself to the news, I’ve watched enough coverage of the floods now to see a few differences between the Aussie and American responses to disaster.   For one thing, the Australians are just as bad at producing maps of disaster areas as they are at making weather maps.  To say Queensland is large is a bit of an understatement.  In my many attempts to find a map of the affected area I simply came up with map after map of the entire state, blocked out in one solid color, with a few useless dots here and there.  Had a flood of these epic proportions happened in California, news stations would have probably presented viewers with a constantly updating map, covered in an animated blue slime that crept along engulfing towns in real time.

The newscasters themselves also presented a decidedly calm face to the events they were reporting.  They were appropriately urgent with the warnings, appropriately somber with the statistics, but overall they were always quite calm.  On most news stations in the States, I believe we would have been presented with a much more manic reporting style, supported by a constant ticker of updates, shouted phone-ins from reporters on the verge of being swept away, and then lively debates about the flood’s impact on our economics.  And it wasn’t just the news reporters but also the flooded out residents who were restrained in their response.  There were tears and frustrations, mourning and fear, but all surrounded with an air of “It’s nature.  We can’t do anything about it.”  Relief centers were generally so well prepared that the beds were all made before anyone arrived, volunteer numbers were well suited to those of the displaced, and entertainers came to sing to the children.

The floods were also another chance for Aussies to show the world their strong spirit of resilience, wrapped in wet blankets of humility.  Queensland premier Anna Bligh was right when she said Australians (not just Queenslanders) are the people they “breed tough.”  They are also the people that take things in stride, and won’t accept too much praise for their strengths.  All last week, people helped each other build sandbag barriers into the night, rescued animals by boat and did it all without extra flair for the news cameras.  Some quick thinking tugboat drivers even saved major infrastructure from damage, by guiding an estate sized piece of rubble away from a bridge.  But to the tugboat driver it was just his job and “couldn’t have been done any better.”  I wonder if good ol’ “Sully” Sullenberger said the same thing when he safely landed his plane in the Hudson river.

That’s Australians for you, calm, collected, accepting and understated, even when underwater.  Perhaps part of the attitude came from the fact that this disaster occurred in a warm country at the beginning of summer.  With the calming effect of the season in full swing, everyone might have been thinking, “I may up to me waist in water, but no worries, I had thongs and swimmers on anyway.”  Here’s hoping they can maintain that attitude during the lengthy rebuilding process.  In the meantime, keep your fingers crossed for blue skies and sunshine in Queensland.  And don’t forget to make your donations to the relief fund.    Much appreciated, Mate!