‘Came up so fast’: Victims’ heartbreak as everything destroyed in Qld floods
An expert has backed up claims residents of some of South East Queensland’s hardest-hit suburbs needed better warnings of potential flood risks hours before it inundated their homes.
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Residents still reeling from this week’s devastating floods are demanding answers as to why they only received warning of the dangers hours after their houses became inundated.
As the clean-up hits full swing, Fairfield residents have voiced their frustrations lack over the lack of appropriate warnings by authorities before rising floodwaters reached their homes.
Their concerns have been backed by an expert in statistical climatology, who claimed Queenslanders were not given the information they needed to evacuate their homes before the floods hit.
Dr Kate Saunders from the Queensland University of Technology said that early and reliable warnings need to be issued so people have sufficient time to act.
“The Bureau issued weather warnings to the best of their ability, but what was missed was the translation of these warnings into information for the general public to act upon.
People needed to be able to go online and look at a visualisation of the flood map for their postcode that showed how the probability of their house flooding would change over the next 24 hours. With this information they could have made more informed decisions when would be best to evacuate,” Dr Saunders said.
“Instead, residents only had a pdf of the flood extent map to make decisions. This map only showed one possible flood scenario, even though the weather forecast was not certain and there were multiple possible outcomes. This flood map also did not show the depth of water, just whether there was water. A house going under floor to ceiling is very different from having some water on your front lawn,” she said.
The expert said that these map did not include low-lying locations away from the river where the rainfall was so heavy that the drainage was likely to fail.
“People needed probabilistic forecasts of flood extent so they could better make decisions.”
Brisbane residents are meanwhile being urged to put out their flood-damaged goods at safe spots on the kerb outside their homes.
Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner, who this morning outlined Council’s three-point flood clean-up plan, said the Mud Army 2.0 would move goods later in the week for residents with mobility issues.
He said more than 8000 people had so far signed up for the Mud Army, which would be deployed to areas of need.
Cr Schrinner defended the delay in activating the Mud Army, saying the original volunteer force which came out in droves in 2011 was poorly co-ordinated.
Council workers had also started the clean up, including clearing debris from roads, fallen trees, filling large potholes and other urgent works.
Initially, two teams of 100 workers would be directed to the 21 Brisbane suburbs most affected by creek flooding.
He said suburbs experiencing river flooding were still not safe to being cleaning up.
“Last time, in 2011, we expected a few thousand but 25,000 people turned up,’’ he said.
“A lot of material was thrown out that should not have been thrown out, particularly where people were away from their homes (and unable to supervise).’’
Cr Schrinner said all of Brisbane’s four tips were open, for free, but urged people to stay away unless they had flood-damaged goods and vegetation.
“Now is not the time to go for (dumping) general waste. There will be queues and the best way to speed up the recovery is to stay away unless you need to go.’’
Cr Schrinner also said that, from today, residents could dump food in their fridges and freezers if their power had gone out. four Resource Recovery Centres for free.
The suburban food waste drop zone sites, which will be published on Council’s website, are concentrated in areas where regular waste collection was missed or access remains difficult.
“We did this successfully after the 2011 floods so we have brought it back again,” he said.
“With the significant interruptions to our electricity supply there are going to be many households and businesses with food waste to dispose of.
“However, I want to stress that the special orange-top bins at the drop zones are for food waste only.”
Below are stories of some of our worst-hit victims as day two of the mass clean-up unfolds …
FEATURED SUBURBS: Fairfield, Goodna, Rosalie, Milton, Auchenflower
Fairfield
Fairfield residents are frustrated at what they say was a total communication failure from authorities ahead of major flooding, and say someone needs be held to account.
Several locals have told The Courier-Mail they weren’t advised of how bad the flooding would get in their area, while adding insult to injury, say they were sent messaging their streets may be impacted by flood hours after water had climbed metres into their homes.
Nigel Bean, who lives on the flood prone Brisbane Corso, said the first warning from the council came at 9:30pm on Saturday evening.
“Somebody has to be put on the spot and asked ‘please explain, what has gone wrong,” Mr Bean said.
“How on earth can we be in a mega-metropolitan city that’s just celebrated winning the 2032 Olympics, and yet we can’t prevent or properly predict, then communicate the CBD flooding? It’s a major economic disaster and we’ve just come out of an economic disaster from Covid, and now here we are again.
“Somebody needs to be put on the spot and answer what went wrong.”
Mr Bean said had his elderly 96-year-old neighbour waited until the first warning of flooding came at 9:30pm Saturday, she wouldn’t have survived.
“If she would’ve sat there til 9:30, how many people had died? Well she would’ve been added to that list too,” Mr Bean said.
“The water was waste deep, she was still sat in her house waiting for someone to come and rescue her … She had called the police earlier, she waited nearly 12 hours to be rescued.”
Mr Bean said communication in 2011 was clear and frequent, however this week residents were left to fend for themselves.
“There was almost a blanket no communication,” Mr Bean said.
“People do want an answer.”
He said he was lucky and his family had prepared with multiple generators, and had managed to move some belongings to higher ground.
However, Mr Bean said the family had learnt from the 2011 floods and had prepared to some extent, but had they been given enough notice, they would have filled their cars with other belongings and driven to higher ground.
“In 2011 there was a massive police presence, a massive presence of SES, giving us updates every two hours,” he said.
“We had loads of notice then, two days notice. But this time round, we had nothing. Nobody had even told us what the level predictions were.
“People are resilient, they will get themselves out. But the reason why most people didn’t get themselves or their things out is because they weren’t told it was going to be like this.”
Mr Bean said it was totally irrelevant the water wasn’t as high or damaging as it was in 2011.
He said when there was six metres of water sitting in low lying residential suburbs, it didn’t matter that the water didn’t peak as high as it previously has.
“People have still lost their houses, telling them it wasn’t as bad as 2011 is irrelevant to them,” he said.
“And we were told in 2011 it was going to be a once in 100 year event, and now it’s happened twice in ten years. So you sort of ask yourself about all those promises the pollies (politicians) make, what happened to them?”
Mr Bean said he had rung SES yesterday and they told him the best information would come from local Fairfield Facebook pages.
“What sort of response is that,” he said.
“I don’t blame the SES, they’re volunteers, but people are paid to do this and paid to predict this. Where were those people?”
Mr Bean said he and his community were frustrated and felt like they’d been left in the dark.
He said had the flooding information been communicated clearly, many locals would have been much better off.
“It just felt like we were left without any information from anywhere,” he said.
“Because you can act on information, you can act when you know what is happening. But for me, the ultimate insult was that the warning came at 9:30, and by then it was too late. What were we supposed to do then? Pack everything in the dark and risk driving through flood waters?
“We had zero time to do anything and that’s what caught people off guard.”
While nearby Newcastle St resident Tim Dean had to evacuate his family through waist-deep water.
Mr Dean, his wife and their two boys, aged 12 and 15, held the cat above water as they evacuated their house on Saturday evening.
“The neighbours on the other side had to get us out of the water, the water was already up to my son’s chest and the force of the water flowing was difficult to move in, like noting I’d seen” Mr Dean said.
“We didn’t see anybody coming to help, no police, no SES, nothing at all. They hadn’t even bothered blocking the street.”
Mr Dean said, like Mr Bean, the first warning didn’t come until late on Saturday night.
“My wife found a warning on the Brisbane City Council web page saying our house was ‘at risk of flooding,’ and well, no sh**. The water was already up to a metre by then.”
Mr Dean said in future, alerting residents of the worst case scenario would allow people time to pack the important possessions and evacuate safely.
“So much for that one in 100 year flood hey … You’d thought they’d have learnt what to do in the last ten years.”
Goodna
Monica Malito was one of dozens of people helping with the clean up effort at Goodna where floodwaters rose several meters, inundating two storey homes and businesses.
“I’m born and raised in Goodna,” Ms Malito said.
“Our house is okay but a lot of our friends and family weren’t so lucky so we’re just doing what we can to help.
“It’s been really tough for a lot of people.”
Ms Malito said despite the extensive flooding, it was not as bad as 2011.
“But there has still been very significant damage and loss,” she said.
“A lot of us from church and the community have just come to volunteer our time and do what we can.”
Ms Malito was volunteering with the enormous clean up at the Just Goodna Gym which was flooded with almost two meters of water.
General Manager Brandon Brown said they had only been able to access the gym for the first time on Wednesday morning.
Thick layers of mud caked the floors, walls and equipment, much of which was being hauled out for disposal by volunteers including staff, members, friends and strangers.
“Some of the people here helping we’ve only just met for the first time today,” Mr Brown said.
“We’re had a lot of community support.”
Mr Brown manages three facilities including the pools at Bellbowrie and Bundamba and said all three had been inundated by floodwaters.
“The water line (at Goodna) was about 1.9m,” he said.
“We’re just focusing on the here and now and getting it cleaned up.”
Nghi Pham, her brother Nhat and their father Van returned on Wednesday morning to find their two storey home on Layard Street at Goodna had been inundated well into the second floor.
“The roads have been cut so we haven’t been able to get in until today,” she said.
We just stood there staring at it and thinking where do we even start.”
Ms Pham and her family were rescued in a boat by the SES on Sunday night after being caught out but the swiftly rising water.
“It was really scary watching it come up so fast,” she said.
By the time the help arrived, water was lapping at the second last step to the second storey home.
The family has lost everything including their clothes and furniture.
“All my uni and school work is gone,” Ms Pham said.
Nearby Goodna resident Judy Sinclair was busy hauling the destroyed contents of her Woogaroo Street home onto the street to be taken to the tip.
“I have two houses here and they both went under,” Ms Sinclair said.
Her home was inundated with water three quarters of the way to the roof while the house she owns around the corner where her son lives had water up to the gutters.
“We weren’t expecting it to come this high,” she said.
“You always hope it won’t.”
Ms Sinclair left with the family pets and precious items including photos and jewellery on Saturday.
“The water wasn’t up then but we just thought it was better to run than have a wet bum at 3am,” she said.
Ms Sinclair’s two houses sit between the Brisbane River and Woogaroo Creek and water came from both sides.
“If Mother Nature does a job, she does it properly,” she said.
Milton, Rosalie, Auchenflower
Wrecked and muddied cars are lodged into fences and sitting in the middle of intersections across Milton and surrounding suburbs where people returned home on Wednesday morning.
There have been tears as residents realise the extent of their loss in the 2022 floods and Auchenflower man Andrew Braidy said there would be plenty more to come.
Friends and family joined him for the clean up at his double-story house on Vincent St which was still partially cut by a body of water about noon.
“There are some people who could only save a little, just what we could, and they’re yet to go through all their things like photo albums,” Mr Braidy said.
“It’s just the heaviness of it all.
“There are some houses which haven’t been touched since water came back in.”
Mr Braidy had borrowed a tinnie from a friend to rescue some of his neighbours at the weekend.
He spent the start of the week guarding the street from looters and beginning the clean up.
Mr Braidy said residents were feeling tired and needed help from people who were strong to lift waterlogged furniture from homes.
“All I need is one win every hour to keep me going because some people need you more than you need them,” he said.
“People are bursting into tears so I’m trying to be that strong support for them to make a difference.
“I’m trying to stay as strong as I can but my time will come.
“I’m busted.”
Jim Donovan said the hardest part about returning to his Vincent St home was confirming that he had lost the Sandman ute he was restoring with his 13-year-old son.
The Auchenflower family lost furniture, all the equipment inside their laundry and three cars.
“But we feel like the lucky ones because water only just started to get inside our house,” he said.
“It was hard to believe how high the water came.
“After all the work that had been done in the area after the 2011 floods we were led to believe there was a low-flood risk and we thought it would never see that again.
“It was supposed to be a one in 200 year event but it was only 11 years.”
Friends of the Donovan family joined them on Wednesday to hose down their house, lift out destroyed items and inspect the Sandman for anything they may be able to salvage.
Meat at Billys’ Rosalie team spent Wednesday feeding hungry residents and volunteers during the clean-up with meat that they weren’t able to sell without power to the butcher shop and surrounding homes.
They lost a storeroom of equipment and dry stock, and the carpark was flooded, but Butcher Fraser Green said they counted themselves lucky given the devastation their neighbours were facing.
“We were able to get out just as the water was rising and we had about half an hour before the power was turned off to get everything out, and we mostly did,” Mr Green said.
“Now our carpark has to be drained and we need the entire switchboard replaced and pass safety checks before we can turn everything back on.”
The shop’s switchboard was in the basement which was still underwater about noon Wednesday.
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