Water everywhere, but not enough to drink

BRISBANE'S flood drama has given way to a drinking water crisis, with Premier Campbell Newman warning that taps could run dry.

BRISBANE'S flood drama has given way to a drinking water crisis, with Premier Campbell Newman warning that taps could run dry if people do not cut their consumption.

The perverse situation developed yesterday, as minor flooding broke out from a swollen Brisbane River, when the city's main water treatment plant was knocked out by silt from the inundated Lockyer Valley, west of the city.

As the evacuation of the stricken town of Bundaberg continued with the airlift of 131 hospital patients to Brisbane by the RAAF and military and civilian helicopters flying non-stop to reach trapped people, Mr Newman urged residents of the capital to limit water use to cooking, drinking and washing.

Brisbane's consumption had to fall by nearly half from the normal level of 450ML a day to preserve supply through the 48 hour-period it would take to bring the water treatment plant at Mount Crosby back on line.

If people did not co-operate, he said, urban reservoirs would be emptied by today, leaving some suburbs on the city's southside with no mains water.

Mr Newman said supplies of bottled water had been positioned on the southside in case supplies ran out this morning.

“If any reservoir runs dry, we'll be immediately providing that for distribution to local areas,” he told ABC television this morning. “This is very serious.”

"There are parts of Brisbane, I am advised, that overnight could run dry," Mr Newman said. "So this is very serious."

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk urged people to revert to the drought-time practice of showering for no longer than four minutes.

"We don't need to panic around this, but we do want common sense," he said.

Mr Newman added that exception would be made for people who had to clean up flood damage. The effectively mothballed Gold Coast desalination plant had been cranked up to pump 40ML a day into the water grid, while discharges from Brisbane's main Wivenhoe Dam would help flush the river and relieve clogging at the treatment plant. Mr Newman said the facility had been unable to cope with river water four times muddier than the water that went down the river during the flood two years ago that inundated more than 20,000 properties in Brisbane and Ipswich.

The neighbouring cities were spared yesterday after the Bremer and Brisbane rivers peaked at lower flood levels than feared.

The Bremer topped out at 13.9m at the Ipswich CBD gauge, short of the 15m predicted and nearly 6m below the 2011 flood mark. Only 35 homes had water "over the floorboards" in West Ipswich.

The nearby suburb of Goodna, badly struck by the last flood, escaped with no houses damaged.

The flood peaked at 2m in the Brisbane CBD at about noon local time, 0.6m below that forecast.

The focus of concern remained Bundaberg, where the Burnett River hit a record 9.5m, flooding 2000 homes. The force of the torrent ripped one unoccupied house off its stumps in Bundaberg North. Both bridges across the river were submerged, and RAAF Hercules transport aircraft shuttled hospital patients to Brisbane in an operation that lasted most of the day.

Police reinforcements were on their way to the town after four properties were hit by suspected looters, and two other cases emerged in flood-bound Gympie.

Mr Newman said looting was the "lowest act" committed by "grubs". In Queensland, stealing during times of declared natural disaster attracts a premium penalty of up to 10 years' jail.

Julia Gillard pledged that the state's hard-pressed emergency services would be backed up by the military for as long as required.

Additional reporting: Jared Owens