Queensland is expected to cop another battering as wild weather continues on Tuesday.
Heavy, locally intense rainfall has been forecast for parts of the south-east, including Wide Bay and Burnett, with six-hourly rainfall totals between 150 and 250 millimetres possible.
Live updates
State and Federal governments announce concessional loans for small business
By Melanie Vujkovic
Minister for Employment and Small Business Lance McCallum has announced jointly funded concessional loans, which will be available for impacted small businesses in the Logan, Scenic Rim and Gold Coast local government areas.
“This support includes disaster assistance concessional loans of up to $250,000, to repair or replace damaged buildings, plant, stock and equipment,” he says.
“There’s also essentials working capital loans of up to $1,000 available to help enable continued operations for affected businesses.
“That might include paying rent or wages. There are over 104,000 small businesses across these impacted regions.”
Federal government approves request for ADF help
By Melanie Vujkovic
Federal Minister Murray Watt says 50 ADF personnel and high-clearance vehicles will be sent in to help with recovery efforts in the Gold Coast, Scenic Rim and Logan City Council areas.
“In particular, those ADF personnel will be focusing on the clearance of debris to enable better access to essential infrastructure,” he says.
They’ll start heading in from January 4.
QFES pleading with people not to head out into floodwaters
By Melanie Vujkovic
QFES Assistant Commissioner Stephen Smith says there were an addition 300 personnel deployed to help with the clean-up and continuing weather situation.
“The State Emergency Service has received over 700 calls in the last 24-hour period, which accumulated now since Christmas is over 4,800 calls, so a very significant volume,” he says.
“Please, if you are out there, there’s approximately 700 jobs that remain outstanding. We are working our way through those and we’ll get to them as soon as we can.
“Our Fire and Rescue Service swift-water crews have had over 20 rescues in the last 24 hours, with over 50 people requiring rescue, and they’ve been from houses, camp grounds, cars and individuals in water.”
700 Energex crews out today
By Melanie Vujkovic
Mr Chelepy says Energy Queensland have over 700 crews out today undertaking reconnection where it’s safe to do so, mainly around Tamborine mountain and the Jimboomba area.
He’s also put in a request to the Federal Government for more help with the clean up.
“We know that with this storm event, rain event, yesterday, today, the night before, this will have a significant impact to the damage that already occurred from your Christmas Day and Boxing Day storm events,” he says.
“We know that we’ve got landslips occurring in the area, we have significant trees down over roadways, so what we did last night was progressed a further request to the Federal Government for assistance in clean-up, in addition to the disaster relief Australia staff that we have on the ground today.”
Residents in low-lying areas urged to evacuate
By Melanie Vujkovic
State Disaster Coordinator Acting Commissioner Shane Chelepy says there are currently two emergency alerts in place for the Gold Coast and Scenic Rim in relation to flash flooding.
“We have a number of warnings out under the Australian warning system for flash flooding and recommending people who are in low-lying areas to move to higher ground,” he says.
Weather system moving towards Brisbane
By Melanie Vujkovic
“We do have flood warnings in place particularly around the Gold Coast areas but being mindful this weather system will see the focus of it shift towards Brisbane and upwards towards the Sunshine Coast.”
Moderate flood warnings for Logan and Albert Rivers
By Melanie Vujkovic
The Bureau of Meteorology says there has been “significant rises” in those rivers overnight.
“The river at Beaudesert is approaching the moderate flood level with further rainfall meaning further rises possible.”
Authorities are giving us the latest on SEQ flooding
By Melanie Vujkovic
Acting Premier Cameron Dick and Federal Minister Murray Watt are in Brisbane’s Emergency Service Complex in Kedron, providing an update on the weather situation.
View more posts
The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) warns falls could exceed 350mm over the next 24 hours.
Consistent rain could trigger flash flooding, so authorities are asking residents to follow the latest safety advice.
BOM said heavy rainfall increased the potential for landslides and debris across roads.
Seqwater has sent an SMS alert saying its Flood Operations Centre has moved to “Alert”, with releases from North Pine and Somerset dams possible in the next 24 to 48 hours.
SES has received 700 requests for help in the last 24 hours on the Gold Coast and Scenic Rim.
Scenic Rim Mayor Greg Christensen said more rain and winds were already causing landslips in the area.
“With everything already unstable from that terrible weather event, we’re seeing now new landslips because of that unstable land so that’s causing road problems,” he said.
He said some homes have already seen low level flooding.
“In the last 24 hours there’s been about 230 and 250 mm here in the Tamborine Mountain Precinct,” he said.
“Since this rain event, that takes rainfall well above 400, everything is sodden.
“We’re seeing people with overland flow in places they haven’t had it, so we’re getting inundation through low-level floors of houses.
“Springs coming out where people haven’t seen springs before, coming out of the ground.”
He said wind conditions on Tuesday morning would be “making people nervous” for weakened trees and branches.
“Tamborine Mountain Road as I predicted earlier, with the wind now coming, we’re seeing more trees falling … so it’s closed again at the moment and the Beaudesert-Beenleigh Road is also closed with flooding at Luscombe Bridge,” he said.
“We’re now seeing stronger wind on the mountain areas, which means there’s going to be more vulnerability to trees and branches and we’re really just urging people to shelter in place if they’re able to.”
State Disaster Coordinator Acting Deputy Commissioner Shane Chelepy said there have been 45 rescues since Monday, some of which could have been fatal, and is pleading with people to stay off the roads.
“We’re seeing these creeks and catchments come up so fast,” he said.
“The next 24 hours I really ask the community to work with us, we’ve had no serious injuries, no loss of lives but we’re still seeing people driving into flooded roadways.
“We did a number of rescues from campgrounds where people were saying, ‘Gee the creek came up so fast, we didn’t think that was going to happen.'”
Energex crews stood down from weather
Emergency Management Minister Nikki Boyd said “catchments are already quite saturated” so any rain is likely to lead to river rises.
Logan Mayor Darren Power said riverine flooding was a major concern, with a lot of homeless people living on the river on both the Logan and Gold Coast sides.
“Police are doing welfare checks on those continually,” he said.
The minister said 500 emergency personnel and volunteers are on the ground, helping evacuate those at-risk to higher ground or one of the evacuation centres that have been set up in Nerang, Coomera and Tamborine Mountain.
Acting Deputy Commissioner Chelepy said more than 681,000 emergency messages went sent to mobile phones across the community on Monday.
He said SES crews from New South Wales and Victoria have been called in to help, and another request for additional resources has been filed to the federal government “because we now know the clean-up is going to be far greater” than that of Christmas and Boxing Day.
Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt said the Queensland government has formally requested assistance from the Australian Defence Force.
“That request did come through late last night so we’re now in the process of working through that with the Defence Forces to determine what support could be required,” Mr Watt said.
“What we’re now looking at is providing boots on the ground to do some of the clearance of debris so that energy workers and others can get towards essential infrastructure to help reconnect and things like that.”
Energex crews were able to reconnect about a thousand Gold Coast homes to power on Monday, but “dangerous weather” meant some crews were stood down until winds eased.
Deputy Premier Cameron Dick said there were 11,000 customers without power predominantly in the south-east.
“We had to pause yesterday because of bad weather unfortunately,” he said.
“We hope by January 5 we’ll have many of those homes back on but now we have to look at what the impact of this flooding’s been and so we’re dealing with one blow after another.”
Cr Power said there were still 2,500 homes which haven’t had power since Christmas Eve.
“Obviously we need the rain to stop…That’s a real concern because this rain is delaying that, and these people are becoming very desperate,” he said.
A spokeswoman from Energex said it will respond to life-threatening emergencies and carry out restoration work where it is safe to do so.
A message to the mayor
The roof of Denis Fogarty’s Oxenford home fell in during recent severe storms — he’s got it watertight again now but the constant rain, and quickly-rising Coomera River near his home, has him worried all over again.
“After Christmas Eve, the anxiety levels were fairly high — and that’s probably an understatement — until the emergency services started to come through,” he told the ABC.
“We thought we got a little bit of reprieve, especially when the power came back on at midnight [the night before last], we thought things were going to be a little bit brighter but [the rain] certainly dampened the spirit.
“But we’re dry … [which] is pretty good because there’s quite a few hundred [who] are far worse off — my heart goes out to them.”
His neighbourhood is worried about debris getting caught at the causeway downstream, noting there will be cause for concern if large logs back-up and flood back through the creek to cut off local roads.
Without “going political”, Mr Fogarty wants to send a message to the Gold Coast mayor: “Get off the blame game bandwagon”.
He suggested Tom Tate “put feet on the ground and just do some door-knocking” because many of his suburban neighbours haven’t been put in touch with support yet.
“It’s a learning curve, I know, we’ve just had a taste of what goes on up north and maybe you should have a chat with them and see how well they do it,” Mr Fogarty said in the wake of the mayor’s comments criticising BOM.
Credit: Source link