wagga wagga flooding

I just got back from 3 days surprise deployment to Wagga Wagga which is about 80 minutes flight from Sydney by helo after the area experienced severe flooding. (Wagga Wagga means 'many crows' in Aboriginal - didn't see a lot though - anytime something's repeated in Aboriginal it means plural or 'lots of' so Wagga is crows and Wagga Wagga is, well, you get the picture).  It's an agricultural area and very flat - similar to the area around Fargo basically - so the water really spreads out. It was interesting to see the emergency management process and how they conducted operations compared to the United States. We helped evacuate a hospital in Urana that had become isolated by flooding and made several transfers from isolated properties and community hospitals to Wagga Wagga base hospital. Not really any critical care, and no winching, but a good experience. The hospital in Urana is essentially a nursing home - I felt badly for the people we were moving, they were having to scatter to many hospitals in the area and I'm sure many of them will be the worse for it - some were quite confused, and a little scared by the helicopter, but they all did very well, and the kindness of the staff at the home and in the eyes of the residents was touching. Flying back with the last group it was nearly midnight, and there are so few homes that it was difficult to tell where the scattered lights of the homes stopped and the stars began, aside from the full moon shining on the floodwaters. Truly beautiful! Happy to be home and get into clean socks though many had much worse problems to deal with - fortunately, the dikes held and most towns escaped massive damage...