Me interviewing the owner of a scuba gear shop affected by the flash flood. We were both fully aware of the irony. Check out the high-water mark in the bottom right-hand corner.
Queensland is currently enduring its worst wet season in decades. My home town got flooded again (the house escaped this time), roads are cut everywhere and at the time of writing, floods are bearing down on Brisbane and three-quarters of the state has been declared a disaster zone.
Yesterday a literal wall of water swept through the Toowoomba CBD, tossing cars around like they were matchsticks and sweeping people to their deaths. Luckily my house and our office was safely away from all the danger, but it caused utter pandemonium.
To say that it was unexpected would be a gross understatement. Toowoomba is located on top of a mountain, with a little stream running through the town… occasionally. Mountaintops generally don’t flood, so a lot of people don’t have flood insurance.
ABC Local Radio is the national emergency broadcaster, and they are doing a fantastic job of keeping everyone across the state updated on what is happening over the radio.
However, I’m now 100% an online journo. No radio or newspaper masthead’s coat tails to ride, just our website which is creeping towards its hard launch in March. Here’s a little look into what what we did, and why we did it.
On the gear:
At Finda we have a HD digital video camera, A Canon 1000D stills camera, a fantastic CMS and most importantly… two multimedia journalists and a multimedia editor all in the same office!
User contributions:
Most major media outlets (us included) relied heavily on amateur footage of the Toowoomba flash flood. Seriously, our tiny stream turned into a torrent within ten minutes, so we had no warning given to send out crews. These videos have been astonishing, and my workmate Steph made a page grouping a bunch of them together.
One of the many great things about the APN/Finda Content Management system is how easily we can integrate YouTube videos.
When the site launches fully, we’ll have a lot more opportunities for user-contributed stuff to be showcased.
So… what have you actually been doing?
Aside from keeping the Facebook and Twitter accounts updated and moderating trolls on the Facebook site, Steph and I hit the streets to take pictures of the aftermath and talk to people.
This morning, our editor Cam told us to go out and speak to people whose businesses had been affected by the flash flood, and to get footage of the clean-up. Steph shot photos and video, I drove and interviewed people.
When we got back to the office, Steph edited what she’d done and I wrote a package story on the people we’d spoken to. Cam subbed it (checked it for style and spelling errors) and pieced it together while I wrote and Steph edited.
In the middle of all that, Cam got word that people were panic buying something fierce over at the Wilsonton Woolies. I drove over and did a quick yarn on that, which you can read here. The headline is a tad beat-upish, but blame that on Cam.
We’ve been getting record site traffic through all of this, which is a great thing. I’m sure a lot of that is to do with our Facebook page, which is very popular.
Other:
I did a bit of a holder story on the implications of a La Nina system before the flood happened
This awful weather isn’t going away. Any donations to the Premier’s Flood Appeal would be greatly appreciated.
IMPORTANT NOTE, 12th January:
I wrote this post after two days into this disaster/crisis, when we were only covering Toowoomba. Since then I’ve been into the Lockyer Valley and seen the utter devastation that has hit the people down there in towns such as Withcott, Murphy’s Creek, Helidon and especially poor old Grantham. You can keep track of my movements at my Twitter, and a list of links to my stories here.
The next zine will be all about the floods – the stuff I’ve covered for work and the stuff my friends and family have experienced back in Central Queensland. All my thoughts and feelings on being a professional gawker and nuisance will be in that. All proceeds will be donated to local flood appeals.
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WORK: Flash floods and flash video – multimedia disaster coverage.
Me interviewing the owner of a scuba gear shop affected by the flash flood. We were both fully aware of the irony. Check out the high-water mark in the bottom right-hand corner.
Queensland is currently enduring its worst wet season in decades. My home town got flooded again (the house escaped this time), roads are cut everywhere and at the time of writing, floods are bearing down on Brisbane and three-quarters of the state has been declared a disaster zone.
Yesterday a literal wall of water swept through the Toowoomba CBD, tossing cars around like they were matchsticks and sweeping people to their deaths. Luckily my house and our office was safely away from all the danger, but it caused utter pandemonium.
To say that it was unexpected would be a gross understatement. Toowoomba is located on top of a mountain, with a little stream running through the town… occasionally. Mountaintops generally don’t flood, so a lot of people don’t have flood insurance.
ABC Local Radio is the national emergency broadcaster, and they are doing a fantastic job of keeping everyone across the state updated on what is happening over the radio.
However, I’m now 100% an online journo. No radio or newspaper masthead’s coat tails to ride, just our website which is creeping towards its hard launch in March. Here’s a little look into what what we did, and why we did it.
On the gear:
At Finda we have a HD digital video camera, A Canon 1000D stills camera, a fantastic CMS and most importantly… two multimedia journalists and a multimedia editor all in the same office!
User contributions:
Most major media outlets (us included) relied heavily on amateur footage of the Toowoomba flash flood. Seriously, our tiny stream turned into a torrent within ten minutes, so we had no warning given to send out crews. These videos have been astonishing, and my workmate Steph made a page grouping a bunch of them together.
One of the many great things about the APN/Finda Content Management system is how easily we can integrate YouTube videos.
When the site launches fully, we’ll have a lot more opportunities for user-contributed stuff to be showcased.
So… what have you actually been doing?
Aside from keeping the Facebook and Twitter accounts updated and moderating trolls on the Facebook site, Steph and I hit the streets to take pictures of the aftermath and talk to people.
This morning, our editor Cam told us to go out and speak to people whose businesses had been affected by the flash flood, and to get footage of the clean-up. Steph shot photos and video, I drove and interviewed people.
When we got back to the office, Steph edited what she’d done and I wrote a package story on the people we’d spoken to. Cam subbed it (checked it for style and spelling errors) and pieced it together while I wrote and Steph edited.
Here’s the final piece. I’m pretty happy with what we all put together.
In the middle of all that, Cam got word that people were panic buying something fierce over at the Wilsonton Woolies. I drove over and did a quick yarn on that, which you can read here. The headline is a tad beat-upish, but blame that on Cam.
We’ve been getting record site traffic through all of this, which is a great thing. I’m sure a lot of that is to do with our Facebook page, which is very popular.
Other:
IMPORTANT NOTE, 12th January:
I wrote this post after two days into this disaster/crisis, when we were only covering Toowoomba. Since then I’ve been into the Lockyer Valley and seen the utter devastation that has hit the people down there in towns such as Withcott, Murphy’s Creek, Helidon and especially poor old Grantham. You can keep track of my movements at my Twitter, and a list of links to my stories here.
The next zine will be all about the floods – the stuff I’ve covered for work and the stuff my friends and family have experienced back in Central Queensland. All my thoughts and feelings on being a professional gawker and nuisance will be in that. All proceeds will be donated to local flood appeals.