Warwick Business angered by overflow unseen in previous floods

Fitzroy St residents, businesses found their backyards flooded in an event one business owner blames on new developments.

‘UNSEEN FLOODING’: Real estate agent Helen Harm remains optimistic despite floodwaters coming into her premises on Tuesday night.

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Warwick businesses, residents have been left angered and facing huge clean-up jobs after flooding on Tuesday night.

Houses and businesses on Fitzroy St saw their backyards inundated with water from the overflowing Condamine River, with one owner calling it a “health risk.”

Real estate agent Helen Harm said she believed recent developments in the area had caused the water to build up in her premises, an event unseen in previous floods.

“I’ve been fighting with the council all day (Tuesday) because the water’s coming up out of their grates, it’s bubbling out of the grates, flooding all of the backyard,” she said.

“It can’t get away because they built the road there now.

“We’re original people but they’ve allowed all this build up to happen so we’re getting to be a big dam out here.”

Mrs Harm said in previous floods when the river receded, so did backyard floods.

“I want to see how many days this takes to dry out,” she said.

“This didn’t happen before.”

According to the business owner, floodwaters came up at 4am and while she believed water would recede quickly, she believed it supported her previous opposition to the Bunnings development.

“When it’s flat like this, it just spreads out and it’s gentle,” she said.

“But it mightn’t have come into the yard as high as it did if that island wasn’t there.”

A Bunnings spokesman said the company was vigilant in ensuring the development would have ‘minimal impact’ on such circumstances. .

“We want to reassure the community that we undertook detailed flood impact reviews with the council as part of the development planning to ensure there was minimal impact on surrounding areas during a flood event,” the spokesman said.

“The welfare of our team, customers and the community is our priority and, as always, we will support the local community with clean-up efforts where we can.”

Floodwaters at the back of Shaun Jenner's Fitzroy St property.

Fitzroy St resident Shaun Jenner was busy cleaning out his submerged backyard this week, but said he was relieved it wasn’t worse.

“They said it was going down and then my daughter woke me up (Wednesday) morning and said ‘the rain’s coming!’” he said.

“When I heard it was only going to go to 5.7m, I knew it wouldn’t come in here, but when it went over 6m it changed my tune,” he said.

“It didn’t come in real high but still, our shed went under.”

Mr Jenner was devastated by flooding a decade ago.

“It’s always hectic,” he said.

“That’s why I’ve raised the house because of 2011, it was only one storey so I’ve raised it fairly high.

“All the water comes down from the mountains, it doesn’t have to rain here to flood.”

Originally published as Warwick Business angered by overflow unseen in previous floods