Bray Park flooding: Resident tells of fears as property inundated after 200mm deluge
Bray Park residents have been forced to swim for their lives as floodwaters inundated their homes in the middle of the night, destroying cars and washing away their belongings.
QLD News
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The suburb of Bray Park, north of Brisbane, was one of the worst-hit places in South East Queensland Tuesday morning following an overnight storm that dumped up to 300mm of rain on parts of the region.
More than 200mm of rain fell in the Bray Park area, with major flooding causing the termination of train services, as water covered the tracks, while trucks were left submerged and homes inundated with stormwater.
Residents have detailed their harrowing escape of swimming through flood waters with their dogs “paddling” to get to safety and hanging to street signs after their houses were flooded in.
FIVE MINUTES AND WE WERE UNDER
A man has told how he woke up with his bed floating in the water that had flooded his home.
Dillon Hunter, of Bray Park, said he woke up terrified because the water was getting towards his bed.
“I woke up in the water, it was about 4am this morning. The water was about waist deep. It got towards the top of the bed,” he said.
“Five minutes is all it took and we were under.
“When we walked down the road. It was deep and the flash flooding was unbelievable. We had to walk through the water to get out.
His roommate, Tiron Ferguson said he was watching tv upstairs when he realised he needed to wake up Mr Hunter.
“The TV then went off then a couple of minutes later the power went out and it was black,” he said.
“I realised it was two feet deep, but the time I got in his room to wake him up it was rising up.
“Everything started floating and falling over. We didn’t have enough time. All of our clothes, everything we owned is pretty much gone.”
‘WORST FLOODING IN 50 YEARS’
One resident told The Courier-Mail it was the worst they had seen in the whole time they had lived in Bray Park, saying it was rare that they got flooded.
Phil Devine’s whole bottom part of the house was destroyed with the people downstairs having to come upstairs to escape from the water.
“I’ve been here about 11 years now, we have never been affected this bad,” he said.
“There’s people who have been living in the area for 50 years and it’s the first time they have seen it this bad.
“There’s a lot of people here, young kids, young families and they are just absolutely devastated.”
‘NO WARNING, IT JUST HAPPENED’
An interior and architectural photographer whose whole bottom level of her house has been destroyed after she renovated says she had never seen flooding like that in the 15 years she’s lived there.
Louise Roche, of Bray Park said she woke up and discovered that her house was underwater.
“We had a good metre of water. We looked out the window and came down the back stairs and just saw our entire property covered in like half a metre or so of water, through the front yard, backyard and the whole house,” she said.
“A whole low level of the house was just absolutely inundated through here
“All of our furniture, my work gear, my cameras, lenses a whole lot. All of my studio props, all of my beautiful props and furniture are all covered in mud.”
Ms Roche said she doesn’t know where to start.
“Where do you even start to comprehend how to tackle it, they don’t give you any warning. It’s just happened. You don’t know what to do. And also, you don’t know what to do after the floods,” she said.
“You know, you ring the insurance company and they’re really helpful. In my case are really nice.
“But it doesn’t take away the fact that everything I worked so far over the last 8-10 years is essentially gone in one minute and there’s nothing you can do.
“It’s so scary to walk down and see all that water and just go what do you do.”
Ms Roche said she had been in the house since 2009 and it was the first time they had flooded like that.
“We’ve had minor floods but we’ve never seen it to this extent. It was just absolutely shocking, I’m just very surprised how quickly it happens.”
SWIMMING FOR THEIR LIVES
Catherine Crabb, of Bray Park, said it had been raining throughout the night when she realised it started to get heavy. She said within 15 minutes it started to get worse.
Three of her cars were destroyed along with many of her belongings after her house was inundated.
“I was aware of a noise and I looked down and there was about half an inch of water under my feet coming towards the bedroom,” she said.
“It was about 15 minutes before it went from my feet, then it went to my knees, then it went to my thigh and it started creeping up.
“There was so much water on the floor, travelling into the lounge, dining kitchen up the hallway to my bedroom.
“I grabbed my mobile phone because I thought it was important to have. I got my son, we couldn't get out of the back door, we had difficulty getting the front door over because the water and as soon as we opened the front door it came in like crazy and because we couldn’t get out of the back we had to go through the water and get the back.”
Ms Crabb said she had to swim to get out.
“We actually had to swim. We started to have to swim when we were up a bit further but the water got higher for some reason which I can’t understand,” she said.
“Then the dogs had to start dog paddling, then it started getting anxious and I started scratching me.
“My mobile phone as we speak is with a neighbour because I was walking and I tripped and I went under and I had my hand up in the air. I thought if I don't have my mobile phone I’m not going to be able to ring anybody.
“I went under the water, I hit my knee and hurt myself
“I positioned myself on a fence line, I got up to the street sign and I kid you not, I was hanging onto it and there was a small amount of pole left. That was just crazy, I thought I’d swim more.”
“The current was so strong it was starting to take me into a different direction, so I swam back to a pole that was under the water.”
Michael Coles got a phone call from Ms Crabb and went instantly to help her but didn’t realise how deep it got.
“It was pretty terrifying, it’s like it gets to a point where you think this is real its happening. It was scary,” he said.
“I didn’t know how deep the water was going to be and as it got deeper to the point I couldn’t stand and I was swimming and there was a current and the water was over the road.
“It was pretty terrifying, I felt worried for Cathy.
“I literally had to swim down the road in the water, like it got too deep to walk.
“And towards the end, I was holding on to the neighbour’s fences to make sure I wouldn’t get pulled away as well, because those strong currents were taking the water down to the creek.
“I was worried at one stage I thought I probably shouldn’t have come down here to do this. But you know, you want to help people.
Ms Crabb said eventually swift water rescue came to help them.
“Swift water rescue put life jackets on both of us and popped us in the boat with the water and took us up back there and let us out and told us to be very careful,” she said.
FLOODED MOST OF OUR BELONGINGS
Nikita Bestwick, of Bray Park, said she was terrified she would be flooded in saying she had “PTSD” from the Moorooka floods two years ago.
“About midnight the rain came in and it started pouring really hard and so by about 12.30 we went out to the backyard and noticed it was under water, the water started coming through the carport,” she said.
“It flooded our front yard, through our carport, our camping gear and most our stuff.
“Around 3am the water was trying to come through the back door, at no point did it ease off.
“We got flooded in to Moorooka in the floods two years ago, so it was like PTSD, we got stuck in there for a week.
“When I woke up this morning and had messages from relatives saying are you OK, it really hit how hard Bray Park was hit.”
Ms Bestwick said she had lost her camping gear, dryer, filing cabinets, couches, barbecue, lawnmowers.
“We were sweeping the water out from the carpark, trying to get it in the yard, there was no point it was flowing,” she said.
She said she was worried that it would get worse over the week getting ready to prepare
“I kinda guess we have to go and get some sandbag for the doors, thankfully our house is brick if its going to continue raining like this.”
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