Gympie flood: Southside reconnects with southeast QLD
Parts of Gympie are finally being reconnected with the state’s southeast as floodwaters continue to recede, although thousands of homes and businesses still remain without power. LATEST INFORMATION, PHOTOS, VIDEO:
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The Southside has been reconnected with southeast Queensland as the Bruce Highway between Brisbane and Traveston reopened on Monday afternoon, and no closures were reported on the Mary Valley Highway.
The reopening of the of the Bruce Highway south of Traveston is the latest piece of good news for the region as floodwaters continue to slowly recede.
As of just past 2pm the Mary River at Gympie was 18.9m and falling, 4m below its Saturday peak of 22.96m.
More than 4000 homes and businesses still remain cut off from power as emergency crews work to repair damaged infrastructure.
Gympie‘s water supply has been brought back online too.
Power has been restored to the city‘s water treatment plant by council workers late Monday afternoon, less than 36 hours after it was cut b rising floodwaters.
The water supply at Amamoor has been restored too, and council is working on restoring services at Kandanga and Imbil.
Kandanga residents had been asked to conserve water after the floodwaters damaged infrastructure.
The Empire Hotel is located in Upper Mary Street in the CBD, the commercial heart of Gympie severely impacted by the flood.
Owner Craig Mylrea, who began cleaning up on Monday, said he had been without power since Friday, and expected the outage to last until at least Thursday - another three days.
During the height of the flood, Mr Mylrea and his son were trapped in their home above the pub, powerless to do anything but sit in darkness.
“We basically just had to sit back and watch everything go under,” he said.
He said they began to run low on food, but fortunately were able to stock up once the water started receding.
It was then his worst fears were recognised.
Everything was gone.
“When they were only initially saying (the river) would reach 17-20m, we thought we would be okay,” he said.
“By the time we realised, it was too late, we were already a foot deep and nothing could be saved.”
But the water did not stop at a foot deep, and rose as high as the top of the door frame entering the pub.
Mr Mylrea lost everything from poker machines to his car, which was swept away.
“I think we’re all going to be in for a good three or four weeks before we can reopen again,” he said.
Energex has indicated it is unable to restore power to the thousands of people still without it, until the flood waters have receded as it’s too dangerous to access most areas to even assess the damage done.
The Southside remains the worst hit suburb with 1655 properties left without electricity while almost 400 Jones Hill properties are without power.
Power outages are affecting 239 properties at The Dawn, 201 at The Palms, 137 at Imbil and 107 at Kandanga.
On the opposite side of the swollen river, 556 Gympie city residents have lost power.
Full earlier coverage of the Gympie emergency
Directly south at Monkland, which has itself been isolated by the floodwaters, 496 homes are without power and north at Chatsworth and Araluen there are a combined 452 properties without power.
Energex is not reporting an expected timeframe for power being restored to these areas. Across south east Queensland there are more than 52,000 home without power.
The outages follow a record smashing deluge of rain across several days, inundating the Mary River and pushing water levels to a height unseen for more than 100 years.
The river peaked at 22.96m about 4pm on Saturday; the last time it hit 22m was in 1898.
The previous record for the largest flood in living memory was 21.95m in 1999.
Floodwaters have finally begun to recede with the river at 19.86m just after 8am Monday.
Food drops are being carried across the region as many residents have ben left isolated by the floods.
Gympie residents were warned to conserve water after major flooding interrupted the Gympie Water treatment plant power supply on Sunday.
In an alert sent to Gympie and Southside residents by Gympie Regional Council, water conservation was deemed “critical”.
It occurred as more businesses in upper Mary St were inundated on Sunday morning, after more than 100mm of rain overnight.
Multiple cattle were washed away from farms upstream of Gympie, with reports and photos of the terrified animals turning up in people’s backyards and shopping centre car parks.
Southside Woolworths reportedly had shelves stripped bare as desperate shoppers stocked up, but Southside cafe Farmer and Sun was kindly offering $20 and $30 relief hampers for those worst affected.
Bank of Queensland Gympie owner/Manager Jellina White said she had lived through at least eight floods in the Gympie region, but this one was “unprecedented”.
She said the entire bank building was under water, with flood waters lapping a back section of the roof.
The branch joined multiple businesses in packing up on Wednesday with the advice the water would reach roughly 20m, but chaos ensued once the Normanby Bridge – the last connection between Gympie and the Southside – was about to be closed.
Multiple rescues have been carried by emergency crews across the region.
Three people and three dogs were flown to safety after the flooding of their Gympie region home, east of Kybong.
An RACQ LifeFlight spokesperson said the family and their three animals were found standing in knee-deep water after they evacuated their home and were cut off by deeper waters.
Rescue crews were called to seven homes across Gympie and Monkland on Saturday night, after another night of torrential rain lashed the Gympie region.
These included the rescue of an elderly woman from her Wises Rd home.
On Saturday night about 700 locals were urged to flee their properties as the Mary River reached its highest level in over a century.
A man swept away in floodwaters at Goomboorian was found dead on Saturday afternoon.
He has been identified as popular Nolan Meats worker and former Gympie High student, Phil Sugg.
Sixty-three-year-old Philippa Tayler of Belli Park was found dead in her submerged car on Skyring Creek Rd, Belli Park on Wednesday morning.
Gympie father-of-three Phil Lambert was found dead after being washed away in floodwaters while riding his motorcycle home at Cedar Pocket early Wednesday morning.
His body was found after a 36-hour search of Greens Creek.
All major bridges, including the Normanby and Kidd Bridges to the southside, Pengelly’s, Inglewood on the Bruce Highway and Bells Bridge on the Wide Bay Highway were cut late Saturday.
Popular charity Little Haven Palliative Care has lost thousands of dollars of stock as one of dozens of businesses across Gympie devastated by continually rising floodwaters.
Staff and volunteers spent most of Friday clearing stock from the Brisbane Rd shop ahead of the expected floods, but were unable to prevent significant losses as the store became submerged by the rising waters.
It was one of several businesses and a dozen houses around the One Mile Ovals to be inundated by flood waters from Deep Creek.
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