At last: First air drop of supplies at flood-isolated Karana Downs, Mt Crosby
The first two helicopter drops of food and medical supplies have landed at Mt Crosby, throwing a lifeline to stranded residents in Brisbane’s west. It comes as residents say their pleas for a disaster management plan were ignored.
South West
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Two helicopter drops of food and emergency medical supplies landed earlier today at Mt Crosby State School, throwing a lifeline to more than 20,000 stranded residents who have been trapped for days.
The first drop was medicines, from Ipswich Hospital, to help Mt Crosby and Karana Downs locals.
The second drop was organised by federal MP Julian Simmonds and delivered food donated by Coles to Moggill and Belbowrie residents.
It also included bathroom items collected by Ambrose Treacy College student Charlie, who stood outside Kenmore Coles for hours asking for donations.
Donated meals prepared by the teams at Kenmore Bears Rugby club were also on the flight.
The next planned drop is this afternoon, organised by state MP, Dr Christian Rowan, and Councillor Greg Adermann, and will drop off food to Karana Downs/Mt Crosby.
It comes as residents trapped in an island from Mt Crosby to Karana Downs say their pleas after the 2011 floods for a disaster management plan for the area were ignored.
Simone Karandrews, from Safer Emergency Response Western Brisbane, said locals warned authorities after the area was “forgotten’’ for days in 2011.
Locals were desperate for supplies when airdrops finally arrived, she said.
“We have been warning about this for years. We are just so isolated here,’’ Ms Karandrews said.
“The local SES has only limited numbers of people in Karana Downs.
“We’ve got a fire station and a police station on College Rd, but there is no other support and no disaster management plan.
“Bellbowrie and Moggill have an emergency plan and activated it on Sunday.
“We were left to help ourselves and the first we knew of the scale of the problem was one alert late on Saturday night.’’
More than 20,000 people are trapped, probably for days, from Kenmore to Mt Crosby after Moggill Rd was cut in three places on the weekend and into yesterday.
The road is still under a lot of water near Rafting Ground Rd at Pullenvale.
SeaLink Moggill ferry has advised it will not resume normal services until March 14 due to dangerous debris in the Brisbane River, blocking the escape route to Ipswich.
Ms Karandrews said luckily the local pharmacy had been able to help with medicines and GP Dr Cathryn Hester had been conducting telemedicine for patients who could not get through to her clinic.
“Crowdsourcing of medications — under medical supervision — is also occurring.
“There have been some Medevacs of heavily pregnant women, including one this morning, but their partners are not allowed on board and have had to try to get people with boats to ferry them across Ugly Gully and Moggill Rd at Pullenvale.’’
Vets have also been run off their feet with some closed as staff could not get to work.
Two vets at Greencross Kenmore Vet Clinic have been working heroic shifts on their own dealing with emergencies, walk-ins and even answering the phones themselves.
There are only two service stations in the area and the Ampol has run out of diesel.
Coles Moggill ran out of all fruit, vegetables and other fresh foods yesterday.
Ms Karandrews said the Karana Downs corner store was nearly stripped on Saturday, with a queue of people snaking through the store and the carpark full.
Emergency services had now put the store’s remaining stock on an emergency-only supply basis.
Garbage services throughout the westside have been postponed until next week, although residents can put out yellow, green and garden waste bins all at the same time.
Suburbs affected included the island from Kenmore to Mt Crosby plus Taringa, St Lucia, Brookfield, Upper Brookfield, Indooroopilly, Mt Coot-tha, Fairfield, Sherwood and Graceville.
One Anstead resident recorded 727mm in their rain gauge since Thursday and another at Chapel Hill 668mm, but water levels have stayed high because of controlled releases from Wivenhoe Dam.
Seqwater has advised this will continue for several days.
Hundreds of people are homeless, particularly around the Graceville area, but also an Indooroopilly mother who lost everything in Yeronga in 2011 and has now lost everything again.
Graceville mother and son Julie Hindley and Archer, 7, are also homeless after their townhouse was inundated by floodwaters.
They spent Monday morning at a bus stop, trying to figure out their next step.
Ms Hindley said the mental impact the floods were having on children like her son was “very scary.”
She said Archer asked her, “Mummy, where is our home?”
The Hindleys managed to escape the dangerous floodwater with just the clothes on their backs before taking refuge at a friend’s home in Sherwood.
“We are now at a friend’s house, we had got out but with no clothes,” she said.
Fairfield Gardens shopping centre has no power and is cut off, with large parts of Fairfield powerless.
Suncorp Stadium staff are meanwhile working “around the clock” to allow Friday’s Super Rugby clash and the Broncos NRL season opener to go ahead after the playing field was inundated.
The stadium was out of action for weeks after the 2011 floods but the damage is not so great at this stage.
A decision on Friday’s match could be made today.
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