Flood disaster: Fresh evacuation orders as NSW floods claim first fatality
More evacuation orders have been made on the Northern Rivers. It comes as a woman’s body has been found in a flooded Lismore home.
A fresh evacuation order has been issued for the Ballina CBD, with residents in low-lying areas urged to seek higher ground or go to an evacuation centre.
It comes after a woman was found dead inside a flooded property in Lismore, which is the first NSW fatality in the latest east coast deluge.
Police and emergency crews attended to the home on Ewing Street.
The woman was in her 80s and is yet to be formally identified.
A man is still yet to be found after police saw him swept into a CBD drain on Sunday.
Ballina Shire Council said on Facebook they expected a peak around 9pm tonight which was half a metre higher than water levels on Tuesday morning.
This will mean that all of Ballina Island will now experience some inundation and it is expected that this level will stay up for a longer period of time as it is not as dependent on the tides,” the council stated.
The Cherry Street Sports Club made an urgent appeal to Ballina residents about the incoming floodwaters and reinforced that they remain open as an evacuation centre.
“We have been informed that residents should make their way NOW to an evacuation centre before it’s too late,” they posted on Facebook
Army rescues rooftop resident
Extraordinary live vision from Sky News Australia has shown the moment a rescue crew successfully retrieved a number of residents from a Lismore rooftop.
An unknown number of residents have been trapped on or inside their roofs for hours - many overnight - as floodwaters inundate their homes.The vision shows the moment the people are finally plucked from their roof in dramatic circumstances.
The first attempt was unsuccessful as the rescuers winching out of the helicopter became entangled in a nearby palm tree but the rescue crew prevailed over the challenging conditions.
With severe flooding besieging Lismore, water levels had almost entirely covered the home’s roof - meaning the rescue occurred in the nick of time.
Assistant Minister for Defence Andrew Hastie says that he and the Australian Defence Force are anticipating further humanitarian aid for flood-affected communities.
Mr Hastie said the ADF were expecting to provide further support in the next few days including to provide humanitarian aid, distributing resources and aiding those who had become homeless because of the floods.
“The defence force personnel operate in very tough environments, they have great logistical support we can give to the NSW and Queensland governments,” Mr Hastie told Sky News.
“This will be something that we do day by day, constantly assessing and updating and pushing out support where it’s needed.”
Mr Hastie defended the government’s response time to the floods saying that both the quick deployment of ADF aid was proof of their preparedness.
“The Commonwealth was very quick to respond to the requests and our ADF are doing a great job with courage and compassion.”
‘One-in-1000 year event’
Hundreds of thousands of people have been warned they may have to evacuate as “unprecedented” floods threaten the NSW north coast.
Perrottet said on Tuesday 26 evacuation orders had been issued, affecting 40,000 people, and 300,000 more could be forced to flee if the situation deteriorates.
“This is an unprecedented event,” Mr Perrottet said.
He warned residents who have experienced floods in the past that the current event would be worse.
“You may have experienced events, (but) they’re not at the scale, and simply because a flood in the past has not affected you, that does not mean this flood (won’t) as well,” he said.
The commonwealth government had agreed to declare a natural disaster was unfolding in 17 council areas, which would trigger federal financial assistance, Mr Perrottet said.
The council areas covered by the disaster declaration are Armidale, Ballina, Bellingen, Byron
Clarence Valley, Coffs Harbour, Glenn Innes, Severn, Hornsby, Kempsey, Kyogle, Lismore, Nambucca, Port Macquarie/Hastings, Richmond, Tenterfield, The Hills and Tweed.
Mr Perrottet said the images of flood-affected areas yesterday were “devastating”, praising the “spirit of the people of the northern rivers” in challenging circumstances.
“We’ve seen people stranded on roofs for hours, we’ve seen children being rescued, we’re seeing people stranded on bridges.
“But importantly as well, we’re also seeing a community come together,” Mr Perrottet told reporters on Tuesday morning.
Minister for Emergency Services Steph Cooke said Australians should “prepare ourselves for the possiblity that lives have been lost”.
“Whilst I would love to think and I truly hope that we will not see any deaths from this event, I think that it is unrealistic that a disaster of this magnitude will mean that there are no lives lost,” she said.
Minister Cooke said the system was moving south and that people on the south coast and in Sydney have time to prepare.
“We have seen what is unfolding in the northern parts of the state over the past few days,” she said. “The time to prepare is now.”
Torrential rain will hit Sydney, Illawarra and the NSW south coast from Tuesday and is expected to cause major floods. Many NSW dams are already near capacity.
“People living or working along rivers and streams must monitor the latest weather forecasts and warnings,” the Bureau of Meteorology advises. “Be ready to move to higher ground should flooding develop.”
Gale force winds can be expected across the east coast from Macquarie to Illawarra on Tuesday, and will pick up in inland Sydney from Wednesday. Gale force winds are also expected on the Victorian west and central coasts and Tasmanian north coast.
Hazardous surf will surge in the east, with warnings stretching the 1200km from Byron Bay to Eden. Swimmers, rock fishers and boaters are warned to stay off the water and avoid coastal areas.
“There is always some uncertainty associated with tropical cyclone forecasting,” the BOM says. The cyclone is likely to move south from either Wednesday or Thursday.
Sydney can expect storms until at least midweek. The city has just closed on its wettest summer in three decades as a La Nina weather event and marine heatwave in the Tasman Sea collided on the east coast. Rains have eased momentarily in Brisbane, but are likely to pick up from Thursday.
Horses, car trapped on bridge
Distressing footage has emerged of horses and more than a dozen cars stranded on a bridge about 34km south of flood-devastated Lismore as Ballina and residents from other areas are evacuated.
Helicopter footage showed major flooding has cut off both sides of the bridge as residents attempted to evacuate the area.
The flood waters have reached the rooftops of the surrounding homes.
Parts of Woodburn have been inundated with flooding in the last 24 hours with river levels along the Richmond River at Woodburn rising above the February 1954 peak of 5.42 metres.
The Richmond River at Woodburn was at 6.65 metres and is still rising according to the Bureau of Meteorology’s latest data at 9.15am.
Queensland ‘not out of the woods’ yet
New analysis from the Bureau of Meteorology has found Brisbane received 80 per cent of its annual rainfall over the past week, with 30 suburbs receiving over 1,000mm of rain.
Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk revealed the figures at her daily press conference on Tuesday morning, shortly after the high tide saw the Brisbane River peak at 3.35m around 9am.
Today’s flood peak was lower than yesterday in the capital and at Ipswich in the southwest, but the region is not out of the woods yet. More than 300 homes are expected to be impacted in Logan today as the river reaches its peak at similar levels last seen in 2017 as a result of Ex-tropical Cyclone Debbie.
River levels are beginning to recede at Gympie.
Those looking to cross from the north to southside of the river via the Centenary Bridge at Jindalee are being turned around due to floodwater. A crane on a barge that came loose yesterday and threatened the Story Bridge has been stabilised.
Ms Palaszczuk urged motorists to stay off the roads to assist emergency vehicles.
‘Grubs’ looting
Looting has piled on the pain for flood-stricken Brisbane, with police now on alert to stop inundated homes being plundered by “grubs”.
Queensland Police Minister Mark Ryan warned that looters would feel the full force of the law after reports that evacuated properties had been raided.
Stealing during a natural disaster is classed as an aggravated offence, carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years’ jail.
“What you are doing is not just illegal, but you are also grubs,” an angry Mr Ryan warned on Tuesday.
“You are preying on the most vulnerable Queenslanders at the time of their most vulnerability. The police will find you and bring you before the courts.
“You’re not even Queenslanders when you engage in this behaviour because Queenslanders help their mates … if you are thieving from them you are not a Queenslander, you are a grub.”
Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll said a 21-year-old man had been arrested and charged with burglary following three cases of alleged looting in Goodna, Blackstone and Bundamba involving two businesses and one home.
“I can’t overstate how disappointed and disgusted I am that has occurred in areas where people have had to leave their houses,” she said.
For the third day running, a high tide and controlled water releases from Wivenhoe Dam, Brisbane’s flood shield, combined to inundate properties across the city. The inner-west suburb of Auchenflower remained under coffee-coloured water, a heartbreaking scene that locals could only confront by canoe.
The Port of Brisbane was closed as debris poured from the swollen river into Moreton Bay, posing a hazard to shipping.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the “rain bomb” weather system now hammering NSW’s north and mid-north dumped more rain on Brisbane than the system that caused the city to flood in 1974.
Unlike the 2011 disaster, when 20,000 homes were inundated after the river broke its banks swelled by emergency releases from the dam, this flood has had multiple causes: erupting creeks, overland flows and flooding from the 200m-wide river that snakes through the nation’s third largest city.
But Ms Palaszczuk, under pressure over the second major flood to hit Brisbane in 11 years, insisted the dam had “done its job” and mitigated the scale of the crisis.
Brisbane City Council warned that the river remained in flood and would continue to peak over the coming days.
There was some good news: flood levees were holding in Maryborough, 250km north of the state capital, and the Mary River had peaked.
Road traffic was gridlocked across Brisbane with many arterial links still closed. Those who were able to re-enter flooded homes began the heartbreaking cleanup.
Anxious night for Lismore residents
A McDonald’s, a service station and an entire shopping centre are completely under water as heavy rains and dangerous weather continues to hammer the NSW north coast.
Up to 1000 desperate Lismore residents have spent an anxious night stranded on rooftops as flood waters continued to rise overnight.
Many of the regional city’s 43,000 residents were forced out of their homes after more than 700mm of rain fell in just 30 hours by Monday afternoon, with striking images showing the local McDonald’s completely underwater.
The city’s main street is underwater and roads are cut off after the Wilsons River breached its levee early Monday morning.
Lismore Mayor Steve Krieg told the ABC as many as 1000 people could still be trapped and awaiting rescue in his area, with around 400 calls for help yet to answered.
“There was a family of five people that were sitting on a roof about 15 km out of Lismore who were awaiting getting airlifted,” Mr Krieg said. “So 400 calls could translate to anywhere up to 1000 people still.”
More towns along the mid-north coast have been told to evacuate as the deluge moves south including Casino, Maclean, East Bellingen, Lawrence, Broadwater and Cabbage Tree Island.
Homes in Grafton have already had their homes inundated with water as the town’s levee threatens to break.
Ballina was issued evacuation warnings at 2am before the direction changed to “evacuate now” about 6am Tuesday.
Residents were given half-an-hour to pack their things and leave.
Aerial images show the extensive floodwaters impacting Ballina in northern NSW as the region suffers the worst flood crisis in its history.
Ballina locals can evacuate to the Wardell Sport and Recreation Club, The Richmond Rooms or the Cherry Street Sports Club.
Overnight the Bureau of Meteorology issued additional flood warnings for the Macleay, Orara and Nambucca rivers.
A number of roads were closed including the M1 Pacific Motorway which was shut in both directions between Cudgera Creek and Tweed Heads.
About 200 ADF personnel and emergency services crews and up to 20 civilian boats had been providing assistance to those in trouble across the affected regions.
Rescue efforts continued into the night, although an SES spokesperson said it was important to also take into account the safety of their own personnel.
“They do want to help the community and they genuinely want to get out there but we need to ensure the safety of our volunteers,” the spokesperson said.
The heavy rainfall has eased across Queensland’s south east, however flood warnings remain in place for many rivers.
“Finally some good news for south east Queensland. At the moment all of the severe weather warnings have been cancelled,” Sarah Scully from the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said.
The Brisbane River is forecast to peak at around 3.7 metres with high tide on Tuesday morning, after reaching 3.85 meters on Monday.
However, a runaway crane on a barge collectively weighing 550 tonnes - or the equivalent of 300 cars - remains stuck in the middle of the Brisbane River on Tuesday morning.
It sparked a major evacuation emergency on Monday with authorities worried it would move downstream and slam into parks or buildings, including Howard Smith Wharves.
Several engineers have visited the site and continue to monitor the situation.
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