Aussie holiday town on Fraser Coast suddenly turned to utter chaos

This tourist town and gateway to a famous Aussie paradise thought they escaped the extreme weather – until a sudden deluge put lives at risk.

A beautiful tourist town and the gateway to the largest sand island in the world has been “significantly damaged” after being smashed by heavy rain as ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred continued to cause widespread problems in South East Queensland and northern NSW.

More than 300mm of rain was dumped on Hervey Bay on Sunday morning, with people in the area suddenly ordered to stay inside and others rescued from flooded cars and homes.

Acting Police Commissioner Shane Chelepy said police responded to 14 jobs on the Fraser Coast for people “in risk of losing their life”.

Unlike other areas further down the coast that had been preparing for days, residents in Hervey Bay say the deluge came as a surprise, with no where near that much rain on forecast.

“There was a severe weather warning but it did not include Hervey Bay,” Fraser Coast mayor George Seymour told news.com.au on Monday. “The weather warning didn’t come out for Hervey Bay until the rain had already started.”

Mr Seymour said they were assessing more than 1600 properties for damage and there had been 400 SES calls.

“There are a lot of businesses and homes without power and that could be the case for some time,” he said.

“It was incredible, the flash flooding; it did happen very, very quickly quite early in the morning.

“I’ve never seen flash flooding like this in Hervey Bay before at all. It was a phenomenal amount of rain.”

Fraser Coast Holiday Park manager Natalie O’Neill told ABC she had guests staying on because they didn’t want to go back to the Gold Coast, but they ended up with their own chaos, with some caravans going under water.

Kyall Kagerer told the broadcaster that several storefronts he owns had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage.

Robina Dawson captured these images from her unit overlooking Freshwater St in Hervey Bay.

The Bureau of Meteorology told news.com.au while it “can analyse and predict when the atmosphere is likely to produce localised intense rainfall, the rapidly changing nature of thunderstorms makes it difficult to forecast their exact location with long lead times”.

The BOM spokeswoman said a severe weather warning for heavy locally intense rainfall in the southern part of the Wide Bay and Burnett forecast district was issued 22 hours before significant rain occurred, and then updated multiple times.

But the sudden rainfall and flash flooding also appeared to take authorities by surprise.

In a press conference on Sunday, Acting Police Commissioner Shane Chelepy explained that following a severe weather warning issued by BOM at 4.54am after the heavy rain had started, police issued a public safety declaration for Hervey Bay at 9.35am, to give officers additional emergency powers and get people to stay indoors.

At 10.30am police issued an emergency alert for people in the Fraser Coast coastal areas to take shelter immediately.

Timmy Rhodes took this image of good Samaritans checking cars in the RSL car park as flash flooding hit.

It is a sad outcome for a community who was only celebrating the launch of the first direct flights from Melbourne in June last year as part of its efforts to boost tourism.

K’gari, formerly named Fraser Island, sits just off the east coast and welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. It also suffered damage.

Hervey Bay is a tourist town and the gateway to K’gari. Picture: Chantelle Francis

The Fraser Coast is known for its stunning blue waters and white beaches. Picture: Chantelle Francis

Big Red Group chief executive David Anderson said tourism and experience operators across South East Queensland and northern NSW would feel the fallout for months to come, “affecting not just operators but the entire local economy who rely on consistent visitor numbers”.

“Without targeted recovery initiatives, many will struggle to get back on their feet,” he warned.

“While we’ve seen time and time again how these operators adapt in the face of adversity – we continue to urge government and industry leaders to prioritise tourism recovery efforts to ensure affected operators receive the necessary support and help affected communities get back on their feet.

“Whether it’s through marketing initiatives to re-attract visitors, infrastructure investment, or financial assistance – it is crucial investments are made in these incredible destinations to help them return to normalcy as soon as it is safe to do so.”

The Big Red Group includes tourism experience booking sites RedBalloon, Adrenaline and Experience Oz.