Sandbags, storage clean-outs and community check-ins: Brisbane locals pull together

When Gladstone Road resident Deb Graham appealed to community groups on Brisbane’s southside to deliver sandbags to a block of units on Wednesday afternoon, it wasn’t because her own home was at risk of flooding.

The complex lies in the dip of the road between Highgate Hill and Dutton Park, and while Graham’s place has been safe in the past, she has been busy mobilising support for her low-lying neighbours, most over 80 years of age and isolated from family.

“It took me two hours to talk to six people,” explained Graham, who has become the unofficial natural disaster co-ordinator for her public housing block.

Kathy (left) and Deb Graham (right) at their block of units on Brisbane’s southside.Credit: Courtney Kruk

“I’ve been going around and speaking to people, pointing out things they need to bring inside so their pots don’t turn into missiles.

“Some people didn’t know there was a cyclone coming.”

Graham is on the younger side of the building’s over-55 demographic but suffers from arthritis and can’t lift heavy items. She contacted the Department of Housing earlier in the week to request a sandbag delivery, but was told they couldn’t help.

“I then phoned the SES and a great team of six people turned up on Tuesday night,” she said.

Of particular concern was Kathy, an 81-year-old neighbour in a unit situated close to Gladstone Road who has been flooded three times in the past two years.

“The SES came out and worked out a very clever way of diverting the floodwater, because most of the rain comes off Gladstone Road, and she’s about three metres lower than the road,” Graham said.

“They were just great … they talked to her and listened to what her concerns were.”

The SES’s stormwater diversion on Gladstone Road.Credit: Courtney Kruk

Further towards the coast, Redlands residents – including Liberal National Party MP Russell Field – were also rallying to support those in need.

Field, who arrived at a sandbagging site in Capalaba on Wednesday, was hoping for enough bags to protect his home ahead of Cyclone Alfred’s arrival.

Instead, he was spurred to stay and help the local community, shovelling sand and filling bags for residents, including the elderly and one person with a colostomy bag.

Residents collect sandbags from a council depot in Bribie Island.Credit: Dan Peled

“It’s better exercise than walking,” Field said.

While suburbs across the Redlands are usually spared the worst impact of extreme weather events, Cyclone Alfred is proving an exception, with earlier predications putting the region and bay islands in a high-impact zone.

It’s not just low-lying residents making last-minute preparations either.

Riverpoint Apartments resident Leanne Sturgess is working with her neighbours to prepare their West End apartment block – 10 buildings spread over three hectares, with 331 apartments housing about 700 residents – for the high chance of basement flooding.

Despite being elevated, apartment and high-rise buildings around West End are prone to basement flooding, cutting power, lift access and disrupting water pumps to disperse stormwater.

Residents of Riverpoint Apartments – in a flood-prone part of West End – have been urged to remove belongings from basement storage units.Credit: Courtney Kruk

“We had our response meetings last night, and now we’ve got all our preparations and advice in place to residents,” Sturgess said.

As a priority, residents are encouraged to clear out storage cages in the buildings’ basements while there is still power to the lifts.

“It’s impossible to get items out by hand when it’s full of mud and water, and you’re in the dark with no power,” she said.

Sturgess is a member of Resilient Kurilpa, a community-led organisation that formed as a response to Brisbane’s 2022 floods.

With information and mapping gathered from locals who have lived through several floods, their collective knowledge and advice is invaluable in the face of extreme weather events.

But even they don’t know what could be in store as the city braces for the first cyclone to cross the south-east Queensland coast in 50 years.

“It’s a whole new ball game with the cyclone coming,” Sturgess said.

“The winds could impact power availability, which means our timelines [for usual warnings] have been brought forward by two or three days.

“We really only have a timeline of the next 24 hours.”

West End Community Association president Selena Moore said the community is used to rallying together during times of need and helping the most vulnerable, but she worries about the growing population.

“In 15 years, this is our third rodeo,” Moore said, referencing the likelihood of flooding in coming days.

“In that time, the population has quadrupled, and the majority are in high-rise buildings … we’ll be watching sites earmarked for 40- to 50- and 90-storey buildings on the floodplain to see how they fare.”

with AAP

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