Floods wash know-alls out of the crevices, writes Terry Sweetman Mud army: Queenslanders will drop everything to help others battling the financial and emotional hardship of natural disasters. Picture: Anthony Reginato Source: The Courier-Mail IF nothing else, you can depend on a good flood to wash a lot of know-alls out of the crevices. This flood - and the last - we were awash with the wisdom of those who knew better than the experts, were smarter than our elected representatives, were wise enough to live on high ground, always ticked off the emergency supplies list and were quick to remind people that they lived in Queensland and should just suck it up. The professionals don't always come out it looking good, particularly when they're in charge of the floodgates, but at least they put their necks on the block and back their expertise against the vagaries of the weather. Know-alls only have to tell us when they get things right and can sweep their off-target predictions into the dustbin of memory. The ever-so-clever can look down their noses, but people live in flood-prone areas for a variety of reasons. Some like me, who choose to live by a river, possibly don't deserve a lot of sympathy but we're not really looking for it, although we appreciate the help we receive. Others live down around sea level because there is nowhere else and some cities are built beside savage rivers because they were the historical reason for their existence. However, the vast majority who live in flood-prone areas do so because they can't afford better. We're not talking of river views. We're talking of low-lying, swampy areas where real estate values fit into modest budgets. Do the know-alls really think the less fortunate really want to face up to this sort of misery year after year? And do the know-alls really want us to believe they are all perched high and dry because they are so wise? Sometimes such foresight is just an accident of history, good fortune or inheritance. And just accept that Queensland is a state of climactic extremes? Well, eventually. I've lived through a few floods in Queensland (going back to a whopper in 1956) and let me tell the experts those whose email names often try to conjure up ancient and rustic wisdom we're handling them better every year. As a kid, I remember the '56 flood, which is probably marked on more than a few stumps under old high-set houses, as a nightmare of uncertainty, danger and improvisation. People did kind things and people performed heroic deeds but official emergency response? Pretty well amateur hour compared with today. Helicopters, rescue boats, emergency accommodation, flood grants, free bottled water, hand-out gumboots, vaccination caravans and platoons of fit young soldiers muscling out soggy furniture? You're kidding. I've been stranded in the northwest for weeks when governments were so slow to get off their butts that we were flat out finding baby food. I've seen people turn over their homes to evacuees from Cyclone Tracy in 1974 and I've just about wept at reports (later confirmed) of unscrupulous shysters along the road ripping them off. And two years ago I went through my own little private hell, although on reflection it meant little more than lots of sweat and lost trinkets. I've been the recipient of help on a grand scale and I have enjoyed the charity and kindness of individuals on a small scale. That's Queensland. But sometimes I wonder how many of the know-alls are all talk and no walk in an emergency. Now I've become something of a know-all. I know there are things beyond our control, that people do their very best but they're not infallible, that our governments at all levels work well and that Australians in general and Queenslanders in particular have hearts of gold. Most of all, I understand the last thing people need in a crisis is a lot of sanctimonious prigs telling them: "I told you so."