Born on this day

Wednesday, January 11, 1843. :   The man who built Fremantle Harbour and who brought water to the Western Australian goldfields, CY O’Connor, is born.

Charles Yelverton O’Connor was born on 11 January 1843 in Ireland. After leaving Ireland at age 21, he first found work in New Zealand as a Surveyor on the North Island. He was then employed as District Engineer for the Canterbury Province in New Zealand. In this position, he was in charge of projects to provide controlled supplies of water for the pumping and sluicing needs of the goldminers, locating tracks and roads, building bridges, and improving facilities within harbours. His work caught the attention of Western Australia Premier John Forrest who offered O’Connor the position of engineer-in-chief. In 1891, O’Connor arrived in Western Australia.

The same talents that O’Connor showed in New Zealand were utilised in Western Australia, despite constant criticism. His plan for a safe inner harbour in the mouth of the Swan River met with great opposition as being impractical. A significant reef obstructed the entrance, and the prevailing belief of the locals was that sand movement would cause continual silting. O’Connor studied the data carefully and determined that the sand travel could easily be managed by dredging the entrance, then constructing two breakwaters to prevent silting at the entrance from recurring. He proposed blasting the reef and deepening the river mouth. Costs would be high, but Premier John Forrest shared O’Connor’s long-term vision, and pushed the plans through Parliament. Fremantle Harbour still stands today and remains the most important harbour in Western Australia – without the silting problem predicted by O’Connor’s critics.

O’Connor was also employed as acting general manager of railways in Western Australia. In this capacity, he planned major upgrades of existing lines, proposed extending and improving the network and recommended the purchase of more powerful locomotives. His unorthodox plans eventually turned the losses at which the railways were operating into strong profits, although O’Connor did not see his plans come to fruition within his own lifetime.

Perhaps the project for which O’Connor is best remembered is the Golden Pipeline, which for over a century has delivered life-giving water to the goldfields at Kalgoorlie. Bold and innovative, now considered one of Australia’s greatest feats of engineering, the scheme initially attracted much scepticism and derision. The pipeline would extend for 560 kilometres from a dam on the Helena River in the east and defy gravity, pumping water uphill over an elevation of 300 metres, before reaching the goldfields. No other project of its size had been attempted anywhere in the world and, as with O’Connor’s previous projects, costs seemed prohibitive. However, thanks to O’Connor’s attention to detail and his consultation with some of the world’s leading engineers, the project went ahead, though it was completed only after he died.

Subjected to public criticism over the cost of the pipeline, O’Connor committed suicide on the beach near Robb’s Jetty on 10 March 1902. In 1912, a statue of him was erected near Fremantle Harbour. Clearly, O’Connor’s legacy is seen in the success of his major projects, all of which have withstood the test of time.

Australian Explorers

Sunday, January 11, 1874. :   Colonel Peter Warburton completes his gruelling nine-month crossing of the Great Sandy Desert.

Peter Egerton Warburton was born on 15 August 1813, at Northwich, Cheshire. A military man, he served for almost thirty years before retiring, after which he came to Australia. He was then appointed to command the Police Forces of the Colony of South Australia, an office he held until 1867. It was during this time that he developed his love of exploring.

Warburton’s goal was to complete the first crossing of the central Australian continent from east to west. In 1872, he was selected to lead an expedition in an attempt to find n overland route from Alice Springs in central Australia to Perth, and to report on what sort of country lay in between. He departed Adelaide on 21 September 1872 with his son Richard, two white men with bush knowledge, two Afghan camel drivers and a black-tracker. After reaching the Alice Springs telegraph station, he then departed for the crossing on 15 April 1873.

Lack of water forced Warburton’s party to head north, rather than directly for Perth. The men endured long periods of extreme heat with little water and survived only by killing the camels for their meat. Although Warburton had one Aborigine in his party, the group was also known to cause trouble for the aboriginal tribes of the desert. At least twice they captured and tied up aboriginal women in attempts to find out the location of native wells.

After finally crossing the Great Sandy Desert, they arrived at the Oakover River, 800 miles north of Perth with Warburton strapped to one of the two remaining camels, emaciated and blind in one eye. The party was then taken to Charles Harper’s de Grey Station on 11 January 1874, where they were given time to recover from their incredibly gruelling ordeal.

Australian History

Saturday, January 11, 1896. :   Bourke, New South Wales, sees the end of thirteen days of extreme temperatures which kill 47.

Australia is a land of extremes: droughts that last for years, devastating sudden floods and raging bushfires. It is also a land where days of excessive temperatures are not uncommon. A period of prolonged intense heat and dryness, beyond what a particular locality can normally expect, is called a heatwave.

One of Australia’s worst ever heatwaves occurred during the 1895-6 summer season. Beginning as early as mid-October 1895, the heatwave extended throughout western New South Wales and areas of the southern states. It was worst in the town of Bourke, in far western NSW, where temperatures of 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees C) in the shade were already being recorded in October, mid-Spring. Bourke’s worst thirteen days of heatwave ended on 11 January 1896, during which 47 people were killed. Temperatures averaged 116 degrees F, or 47 degrees Celsius. By the time the worst of the heatwave had abated in the region, by late January, 437 people across the southern states had died.

Australian History

Saturday, January 11, 1986. :   The Gateway Bridge in Brisbane, Australia, is officially commissioned.

The Gateway Bridge, in the capital city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, is the most easterly crossing of the Brisbane River, situated close to where the river empties out into Moreton Bay. Construction began on 5 June 1980 and the bridge was officially commissioned on 11 January 1986. On completion of construction, the main span of the Gateway Bridge was a world record 260m for a prestressed concrete Free Cantilever Bridge, a record it held for over 15 years. The box girder is still the largest prestressed concrete, single box in the world, measuring 15m deep at the pier, with a box width of 12m and an overall deck width of 22m, allowing for 6 lanes of traffic.

Rising high over the river, the bridge owes its distinctive shape to air traffic requirements restricting its height to under 80 metres (263 ft) above sea level, including all features of the bridge, such as light poles. Shipping needs required a navigational clearance of 55 metres.

The Gateway Upgrade Project, begun two decades later, included the duplication of the Gateway Bridge and widening of 20km of the Gateway Motorway to allow for 6 lanes, from Mt Gravatt-Capalaba Road in the south to Nudgee Road in the north. The duplicate Gateway Bridge and the revamped Gateway, renamed the Leo Hielscher Bridges, were completed in mid-2010, along with the remaining lanes of the Gateway Motorway deviation.

Australian History

Tuesday, January 11, 2011. :   Despite Brisbane being supposedly flood-proof, a flood of epic proportions begins to inundate the city.

The city of Brisbane is located on the Brisbane River, after which it was named. The river was discovered in June 1823 by three ticket-of-leave convicts, and named by explorer John Oxley who came across the convicts quite by accident. After surveying the river for 80 km upstream, Oxley delivered an enthusiastic report on the river, and a convict settlement was established in 1825.

The Brisbane River catchment covers an area of approximately 15,000 square kilometres. It is fed by the Lockyer-Laidley Valley, which then drains into the Brisbane River in the Brisbane Valley west of Brisbane. Another major tributary is the Bremer River, which meets the Brisbane River at Moggill. In January 1974, Brisbane and nearby Ipswich were hit by a catastrophic flood. This was the result of an exceptionally wet preceding year, made worse by Cyclone Wanda, which developed into a rain depression after it crossed the coast. It was recognised that a new dam was needed to offset the likelihood of another such flood. Over the next decade, measures were taken to expand Somerset Dam, which released water into the Brisbane River, and to construct another larger dam, the Wivenhoe, which was completed in 1985. For decades, Wivenhoe protected Brisbane from any further threat of floods.

2010 saw the development of a La Nina weather pattern which brought unusually high rainfall to eastern Australia. Central Queensland was already experiencing some flooding by 10 December. On Christmas Day 2010, Cyclone Tasha crossed the coast at Cairns, bringing heavy rain along a vast section of the coast and inland. Major centres such as Rockhampton and Bundaberg were badly affected, while the river systems inland, at Chinchilla, Dalby and St George were stretched to breaking point.

Heavy rainfall began falling throughout the southeast on Christmas Day and continued on and off through January 2011. On 10 January, the city of Toowoomba, at the top of the Great Dividing Range, experienced unprecedented flash flooding. This sent a 7 metre high wall of water down the range, flooding the Lockyer Valley and raising water levels in Wivenhoe Dam to 190% and higher. Fourteen people were killed in this one flash flood alone. With all the floodgates open, the Brisbane River was filled to capacity and, by early afternoon on 11 January 2011, began to break its banks.

Over the next two days, the Brisbane River continued to rise, inundating around 50 suburbs, while the Bremer River in Ipswich also caused major flooding. The flood peaked at 4.46 metres at 4:01am on January 13 before beginning to slowly recede.

World History

Thursday, January 11, 1787. :   Two moons of Uranus, Titania and Oberon, are discovered.

Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun. A gas giant, it is made up mostly of rocks and various ices, with only about 15% hydrogen and a little helium. Uranus was discovered by William Herschel in 1781. Herschel is also credited with discovering two of Uranus’s 27 known moons, Titania and Oberon, on 11 January 1787. Titania is the largest moon of Uranus and was named after Titania, the Queen of the Faeries in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Oberon was named after Oberon, the king of the Faeries in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Both moons are composed of roughly 50% water ice, 30% silicate rock, and 20% methane-related carbon/nitrogen compounds.

World History

Friday, January 11, 1935. :   Amelia Earhart becomes the first person to fly solo from Honolulu to Oakland, California.

Amelia Mary Earhart was born on 24 July 1897 in Atchison, Kansas, USA. She was the first woman to achieve the feat of flying across the Atlantic. Her first trip across the Atlantic in a Fokker F7 Friendship took 20 hours and 40 minutes. She then flew solo across the Atlantic in 1932. On 11 January 1935 Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Honolulu to California. She had departed Wheeler Field in Honolulu, Hawaii, and after a journey of over 3,800km in 18 hours, she arrived at Oakland Airport in Oakland, California.

In 1937, together with her navigator Fred Noonan, she attempted a round-the-world flight in a Lockheed Electra. Approximately five weeks after she set off, her plane disappeared, last heard about 100 miles off Howland Island in the Pacific. Speculation has been rife over the years regarding what happened to Amelia Earhart. The usual conspiracy theories and alien abduction theories have abounded but no evidence has ever been found to substantiate them, and the circumstances surrounding Earhart’s disappearance remain a mystery.

World History

Thursday, January 11, 1962. :   Up to 4,000 people are killed in an avalanche and mudslide in Peru.

Mount Huascarán is an extinct volcano in the Andes of west-central Peru. The highest mountain in Peru, its elevation is 6,768m. On 11 January 1962 a huge avalanche which included ice, snow, mud and rocks swept down the mountainside, as storms caused a hanging glacier on the sheer north summit to break off. The town of Ranrahirca was completely inundated, with only 50 of its 500 inhabitants surviving. Eight other smaller mountain villages were also buried. A huge wall of ice and rocks, about 12m high and a kilometre wide rushed down the River Santa. The river rose by eight metres, carrying with it everything in its path down the Rio Santa valley. Estimates of people killed varied between 2,000 and 4,000 but actual figures will never be known.