‘A very anxious night’: City under siege as south-east flood crisis deepens

South-east Queensland schools will be closed on Monday, public transport services have been cancelled and residents are urged to work from home as the deadly floods continue to wreak havoc.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced the closures on Sunday afternoon after a disaster briefing also attended by Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner.

The Brisbane River has been smashed by rain.Credit: Fairfax Media

Seven people have died in a week of wild weather, scores have been rescued and at least one other person is missing feared drowned. Authorities are concerned people continue to take unnecessary risks.

Low-lying city suburbs have already been swamped and the surging Brisbane River has uprooted jetties and pontoons, sending debris into popular riverside boardwalks and eateries.

On Sunday night, residents in the Ipswich suburbs of Booval and Bundamba were warned they should prepare to evacuate, and warnings were issued for Logan and the Gold Coast.

Brisbane experienced its wettest three-day period on record, and the river that bears its name was tipped to peak in the CBD at around 4 metres with Monday’s high tide. That would be the highest since the 2011 floods.

“We do expect the levels around Brisbane to remain high,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“It’s unrelenting. It’s just coming down in buckets. It’s not a waterfall, it’s like waves of water just coming down.”

Hundreds of roads and streets remained cut, including the normally busy Bruce Highway and the M1 on the Gold Coast. There were also widespread power and internet outages, and the saturated ground has caused sudden landslides and tree falls.

Residents survey the damage in Goodna, west of Brisbane.Credit: Dan Peled (Getty)

While rain was expected to ease in Brisbane overnight, rivers, creeks and brooks will likely remain swollen for three days, compounded by the tide rising twice a day. Water has also been released from Wivenhoe Dam, although authorities believe it is still providing flood mitigation.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison urged people to keep safe during this “serious natural weather event”.

“It’s going to be a very anxious night in Brisbane as that rain continue to fall,” he said on Sunday afternoon.

“We need people to remain home in shelter unless they have been ordered to evacuate.”

Mr Morrison said planning for recovery had already begun with the offer of disaster recovery payments. He defended his most senior Queensland MP, Peter Dutton, organising a GoFundMe page for Pine Rivers.

Cr Schrinner foreshadowed the return of Brisbane’s ‘mud army’ - but cautioned that it was still too dangerous for people to take to the streets. He slammed those who engaged in “disaster tourism”.

As Brisbane peaks, the flood threat will likely shift more to the Gold Coast and border communities, as the weather system finally starts to move away.

The rainfall has been unrelenting: Kippa-Ring saw 135 millimetres in 90 minutes and Murrumba Downs copped 52 millimetres in half an hour.

More than 1000 people were in evacuation centres after serious flooding across an area stretching from Maryborough and Gympie in the north, down the coast, west to Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley, and south beyond the NSW border.

A major water treatment plant was knocked offline, and on Sunday afternoon there were 31,000 properties without power, including 13,000 in Brisbane and 5700 in Gympie.

In Brisbane, a boat with a man onboard was washed into a ferry terminal at Kangaroo Point before sinking, forcing a dramatic inner-city rescue. The man escaped uninjured but his boat was destroyed.

Boats and debris have been smashing into the ferry terminals - the Holman Street Terminal was designed to break apart - and tugs were mobilised to mitigate the damage to infrastructure.

Flotsam is piling up on the Howard Smith Wharves, where a waterfall was cascading down rocks just below the Story Bridge. Security guards sought to keep onlookers out of danger.

Numerous cars have been swamped, left in the floodwaters, while a bus next to Suncorp Stadium was abandoned with water above the seats.

The main entrance to the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital has been flooded, forcing the cancellation of non-urgent appointments, while many public transport services and flights have been cancelled.

Ms Palaszczuk had earlier predicted around 1500 houses in Greater Brisbane would have water reach the floorboards however the likely impact was still being assessed overnight.

A water feature springs forth at Howard Smith Wharves.Credit: Sean Parnell, Brisbane Times

Wivenhoe Dam - which has flood mitigation capacity - reached 180 per cent capacity on Sunday night. SEQWater ordered staggered water releases as a precaution, while massive pumps piped water around the storage network as it neared 100 per cent capacity.

The flood level of the Bremer River in Ipswich was expected to be similar to that brought by Tropical Cyclone Oswald in 2013, while the Mary River in Gympie has risen to 23 metres – 1 metre higher than what was seen in 1999.

The Gympie flood was the worst since 1893, while the nature of the Brisbane inundation sparked comparisons with the 2011 flood and even the 1974 disaster, although the river was still expected to peak at a lower level.

About 31 emergency alerts were active and 500 dwellings had been inundated across the south-east by Sunday afternoon.

“It’s filling up all of our catchments, rivers and, not only that, we have a lot of rain coming in,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

A car is submerged at the intersection of Baroona, Haig and Fernberg roads in Paddington on Saturday morning. Credit: Richard Holdcroft

“If you do not have to be on the roads, please do not be on the roads.

“This is a very extreme weather event that we have at the moment.”

The rain was easing on the Sunshine Coast and in the Gympie region, the weather bureau said, but Maryborough would see a peak on Sunday night. Beaudesert was expected to be reaching a peak.

On Monday morning, authorities confirmed a 59-year-old Carseldine man had become the seventh person to die after trying to cross Cabbage Tree Creek Road in Fitzgibbon on Sunday afternoon.

Fears were still held for a man in his 70s who fell from a yacht into the turbulent Brisbane River near Breakfast Creek.

Despite the rain, a shortage of drinking water due to the failure of the Mt Crosby treatment plant prompted the Gold Coast desalination plant to be activated to supplement supplies.