Brisbane residents face another cleanup after 94mm rain bomb
Brisbane residents are fed up with constant flooding with the latest unexpected rain bomb taking just 40 minutes to infiltrate homes.
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Brisbane is once again reeling from severe thunderstorms and flash flooding on Saturday with more on the way, the weather bureau warned.
Mansfield was smashed by 94mm of rain yesterday, with the highest totals also seen in East Brisbane (85mm), Camp Hill (78mm), and Morayfield (80mm).
20 SES call-outs were made across the Brisbane region yesterday, with 10 of those responding to tarping following storm damage. One job involved trees down on a road in Camp Hill, and nine were helping residents with sandbagging and flooding assistance.
The intense thunderstorms and flash flooding saw day one of the third test for India versus Australia rained out, forcing thousands of fans to seek shelter at the Gabba.
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It comes after Brisbane’s Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner issued a stark warning for locals that flooding this summer could rival the catastrophic 2022 weather event.
Bureau of Meteorology’s Brooke Pagel said should be bracing for more storms, high temperatures and high humidity until at least Wednesday.
“We can expect another thunderstorm in Brisbane later this afternoon from about 3pm,” the meteorologist said.
“A lingering coastal trough means South East Queensland can expect storm activity until at least Wednesday.
“There will also be some low intensity heatwave conditions with high humidity, Brisbane temperature will top around 30C for the next few days.
“But those temperatures are also expected to ease off after Wednesday.”
Whilst experiencing less rainfall than Brisbane, rising rivers in the west could lead to minor flooding near Bremer River, Laidley Creek and Warrill Creek.
East Brisbane resident Martin Wright said his home had been hit by flash flooding for the second time this month, with his downstairs area practically unusable.
He and his two roommates live near Norman Creek, which consistently floods after intense rainfall.
“Until everything is dried out and we have pressure cleaned downstairs we don’t really know the full extent of the damage,” he said.
“Our indoor garage was completely ruined two weeks ago, we keep a lot of stuff there.
“Before the last floods, I’d set up a music studio there. We’d set up a workshop with all our tools for the car. My housemate is a sparky, so he was storing his electronics and stuff down there.”
“Now we have to go to the laundromat to do our washing because we can’t do it downstairs.”
The 37-year-old said he now gets nervous every time it rains, wondering whether he has to head home incase it floods.
“Both times the flash flooding has started within 40 minutes, we feel like we need to keep our stuff packed and ready just in case,” he said.
“It is not a sustainable way to live. But it isn’t anyone’s fault, all this rain.
“We are stuck between a rock and a wet place”
On Sunday, Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner reinforced his safety messaging, stating Southeast Queensland has had ”much more rain that was normal for November and the first half of December”.
“The critical thing that people need to be aware of is that the ground in Brisbane and South East Queensland is fully saturated,” he said.
“Because the rain will not soak into the ground, it will run directly off into drains and creeks, and we know how quickly that can occur.
“We’ve seen for a couple of weekends in a row, unexpected downpours that have caused some flash flooding. This is something that I’m asking the people of Brisbane to be prepared about.
“Ultimately, as we go into this summer storm season, we know that storms can come any day, and we know that in different parts of the city, they’ll get different levels of rainfall.
“Some parts of the city will get low rainfall, other parts will get extremely high rainfall. This is the nature of Brisbane. This is the nature of weather in Brisbane.
“But if you’re living in one of those low lying areas, you need to be prepared for flash flooding.”
Mr Schrinner encouraged locals to start thinking about practical ways to protect their homes and personal belongings.
“That means basic things like, don’t park your car in an area that could flood. We saw that (on Saturday) in Stones Corner, where cars were flooded from some short, sharp flash flooding,” he urged.
“It also means that if your house is built on stilts and you’re storing things underneath, but be careful about what’s stored in an area that could flood.
“These type of simple things can save people 10s of 1000s of dollars when it comes to being prepared.
“Move the items to a higher level, don’t park a car in an area that could flood. These are sort of practical bits of advice that can help people save 10s of 1000s of dollars in the case that it floods.”
Mr Schrinner said the Brisbane City Council had identified more than 70 evacuation sites for Brisbane should another catastrophic flooding event happen.
“One of the lessons that we learned from the 2022 flood event was that flooding can occur in every part of Brisbane. And we saw 170 suburbs out of the 190 suburbs in Brisbane impacted in 2022,” he said.
“That means that evacuation centres are required all across Brisbane in those sort of events. In other events, they may only be required in certain locations. And so we’ve identified a whole range of centres, I believe, from memory, more than 70 different options for evacuation centres.”
Mr Schrinner said while he did not want to see another event like the 2022 floods happen again, Brisbane needed to be prepared.
“Right now, any large downpour can lead to flash flooding. And that doesn’t necessarily mean a large river flood, but it could be a localised creek flood,” he said.
“It could be flooding in localised suburbs of Brisbane, just like we’ve seen yesterday in some areas like stones corner and Coorparoo, and also a couple of weeks ago, we saw similar flooding in certain areas.”
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