Emergency alert: Towns inundated, cut off as ‘very dangerous storms’ dump 463mm
Multiple locations across South East Queensland were placed on emergency alert overnight with warnings of life-threatening flash flooding.
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Multiple towns were placed on high alert Thursday night as warnings were issued of flash flooding potentially leading to evacuations.
Queensland Fire and Emergency Services issued a stern warning to residents as flash flooding unfolded across the southeast, asking them to stay off the roads during the flood event.
Emergency services have been inundated with rescue requests, particularly in the Logan and Ipswich areas.
Brisbane QFES reported more than 50 vehicle rescues up to midnight on Friday however, all drivers were able to avoid life and death rescue situations by escaping their cars.
A QFES spokesperson said it was “imperative” to remind drivers to stay off the roads.
“It’s imperative because we may not get to you,” they said.
Police said they too were inundated with storm related requests, with more than active 80 jobs to attend to.
“People are still driving through flood waters and getting stuck which is frustrating,” a Queensland Police spokesperson said.
“By staying off the roads you’re helping us respond to the jobs for the people who urgently need us.”
An emergency alert was issued at 10.45pm for the Ipswich Local Government Area as life-threatening flash flooding started occurring in the area.
The alert warned residents in low lying areas to prepare to leave and warn others.
The SES urged Ipswich residents to monitor conditions, not enter flood waters and contact the emergency service for any flood assistance on 132 500.
Another emergency alert issued at 11.05pm for Sunshine Coast residents warned a major flood level was recorded in the Mooloolah River.
It was predicted the water level of the river could potentially impact nearby areas.
Waterways in the region impacted by floods were also expected to be elevated for a while.
People in Gympie had also been warned about flash flooding in an emergency alert shared by Queensland Fire and Emergency Services.
The alert warned residents they may have to consider leaving their properties as rainfall continued to impact the area.
Residents were told to prepare essential items if they do choose to leave, to prepare the property as well, and to go stay somewhere on higher ground.
Evacuation centres will be run by the Council at the Gympie Civic Centre on Mellor Street, and the Pavillion at the Gympie Showgrounds.
A major flood warning was issued for the Logan River and a minor flood warning for the Albert River.
The Logan River is expected to flood at Beaudesert late Saturday morning.
Minor to moderate flooding is also possible in other areas along both the Logan and Albert River.
The warnings came after emergency services rushed to help six people trapped on a roof in the Lockyer Valley. The group was among hundreds of people requesting help, as flood waters continue to rise in the South East.
Grantham and Helidon residents have been told “water levels are rising rapidly” and have been urged to evacuate if safe to do so, or otherwise seek higher ground.
Queensland Police Service Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski provided an update on the emergency weather situation on Friday afternoon.
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE ALL THE DETAILS FROM THE PRESS CONFERENCE
Towns are cut off and being inundated by flash flooding as southern Queensland is smashed by a widespread weather system stretching from north of Gympie, to the border and west to the Darling Downs with major roads cut and emergency alerts issued.
It came after a series of “very dangerous thunderstorms” dumped more than 420mm of rain in six hours on Thursday night.
The update comes after some residents in Grantham and Forest Hill in the Lockyer Valley were urged to evacuate Friday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services also issued emergency alerts for people in Moreton Bay Regional Council and Somerset Regional Council areas, with flash flooding reported in these areas. There was also an emergency alert for Gympie, with the Normanby and Pengellys bridges closed, meaning traffic was unable to head south.
Goomeri and Woolooga, in the Gympie region, were also totally cut off.
The Bruce Hwy, north of Caboolture, was cut to the south, and local residents there were told to prepare to evacuate if the rain continued.
On the Fraser Coast, an emergency alert was issued for people in Maryborough.
QFES warned the Mary River was predicted to rise above minor flood levels late on Friday and that it was expected to surpass major flood levels on Sunday morning.
The Granville Bridge will close at 3am Saturday and the Lamington Bridge at Tinana is already closed.
The Maryborough Senior Citizens Hall on Alice St will become an evacuation centre as of 8am on Saturday.
Rainfall totals from midnight Thursday included 455mm at Pomona, 410mm at Cooran, 280mm at Mt Glorious and nearly 125mm at Toowoomba.
Damaging wind gusts up to 90km/h are also forecast in coastal areas.
Seqwater advised at 6.20pm Friday they would release water from Wivenhoe Dam at 10pm. A warning was issued for people downstream of the dam and in Wivenhoe to stay away from fast flowing or deep water near waterways or floodplains.
Power outages were reported across the South East Queensland due to flooding, fallen trees and storm damage.
Energex said 2359 customers were without power at 2pm Friday, with the majority of outages affecting the Sunshine Coast region.
WHAT HAS UNFOLDED SO FAR:
– 423mm of rain falls in just six hours at Biggenden
– Fresh series of ‘very dangerous thunderstorms’ bearing down on southeast
– Emergency alerts issued as North Burnett towns and Goomeri, west of Gympie, cut off by floodwaters
– Separate alerts were issued at 11.30am for the Lockyer Valley and Toowoomba
– A warning has been issued for Imbil residents as Borumba Dam overflows and threatens nearby homes
– Toowoomba Range cut, Warrego Highway closed for hours after truck jackknifes in bad weather
— Emergency alert for Cedar Pocket Dam catchment area
— Grantham and Helidon residents told to leave now or get to higher ground.
— Emergency Services have held a press conference, providing the latest updates on the flooding situation
3.30PM FRIDAY EMERGENCY SERVICES PRESS CONFERENCE
Gympie is expected to see levels of flooding not seen for more than 20 years as the region cops a bucketing.
Not since February of 1999 have floodwaters been expected to rise so high in the Gympie region of the Mary River.
The rain cell has been described as the most devastating weather event in southeast Queensland for a decade.
Queensland Fire and Emergency Service personnel have responded to 997 events in the past 24 hours. The State Emergency Service has responded to 956 requests for assistance, while QFES has been involved in 41 water rescues.
Queensland Police Service Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said it was a dramatic and evolving situation.
“We have literally hundreds of jobs on the run at the moment,” he said.
Six people are sheltering on a rooftop near Grantham.
Deputy Commissioner Gollschewski said it was hard to compare today’s tempest to the devastating floods of 2011 in Grantham.
“The situation is still unfolding,” he said.
“We are taking this very seriously.”
Many locations across the South East have exceeded their monthly rainfall figures in just 24 hours.
Deputy Commissioner Gollschewski said children should be kept home with almost 50 schools now closed across the South East.
THE FULL DETAILS
A number of emergency alerts are current for towns across South East Queensland, as dangerous flash flooding occurs and roads and bridges are cut.
Earlier today, an alert was issued for North Burnett residents, with people told to stay off the roads if possible.
The small town of Goomeri, west of Gympie, was also subject of an alert, with the town inaccessible after roads and bridges went under. Woolooga and other towns further west were also impacted.
A third alert has been issued for Imbil residents as Borumba Dam overflows and threatens nearby homes.
And, at 11.30am, an emergency alert was issued for the Lockyer Valley and another for Toowoomba, warning that flash flooding is expected to impact local roads and bridges, with residents urged to stay off the roads.
Already, in the three hours to 10.30am, Upper Lockyer has recorded 105mm of rain.
At 2.08pm a self-evacuation alert was issued for Forest Hill by the Lockyer Valley Regional Council.
Residents were urged to evacuate as a matter of urgency.
The Lockyer Valley Regional Council said “while this is a precautionary measure, the unpredictability of this event means that the conditions could deteriorate rapidly.
Grantham, also in the Lockyer Valley, has also issued an evacuation warning for residents in low-lying areas.
The Toowoomba Connection Rd at Withcott is now closed in both directions because of local flooding, meaning the Toowoomba Range is closed.
The Warrego Highway has been reopened, after earlier being closed near Brisbane after a B-double jackknifed in what authorities believe is a weather-related incident.
No-one was seriously hurt but the highway remained shut at 11.30, with police diverting traffic while equipment was brought in to clear the scene.
SEE THE FULL LIST OF ROAD CLOSURES HERE
North of Brisbane, staff at Woodford Correctional Centre have been unable to do a shift change, with the facility cut off by floodwaters.
A Queensland Corrective Services spokeswoman said the centre was not at risk of flooding.
An emergency alert was issued for Cedar Pocket Dam catchment area (near Gympie) at 1pm, with residents downstream advised to stay vigilant.
Earlier, Queensland Police said Goomeri – which was hit hard by early January’s major rainfall event – was completely inaccessible and closed with roads and bridges underwater.
Residents in Noosa have also been put on high alert, with the Bureau of Meteorology warning of the possibility of flash-flooding.
More than 150 roads are closed across the southeast.
It comes as a severe thunderstorm warning for “very dangerous” storms was issued at 11.27am for most of southeast Queensland with storms detected at 11.20am near Fernvale, Conondale and Hatton Vale, and expected to hit parts of Ipswich, Somerset, Lockyer Valley, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane City and Moreton Bay in the coming hours.
“These thunderstorms are slow moving. Very dangerous thunderstorms are forecast to affect Laidley, the area north of Woodford and the area west of Conondale by 11:50am and Gatton, Upper Brookfield and Mount Kilcoy by 12:20pm,” the BOM warning said.
“Intense rainfall that may lead to dangerous and life-threatening flash flooding is likely.
“Heavy rainfall increases the potential for landslides and debris across roads.”
Toowoomba Regional Council has issued an emergency alert, with flash flooding occurring.
âš ï¸UPDATE: Further intense rainfall from slow moving dangerous storms expected in #Toowoomba over the next hour. Storms forecast to affect #MtNebo#D'AguilarRanges, the area S/SE of #Gympie and #Pomona.
— Bureau of Meteorology, Queensland (@BOM_Qld) February 25, 2022
âš ï¸Warnings: https://t.co/FBmpsInT9o
🚧Road closures: https://t.co/PNRpnY1nkMpic.twitter.com/Pyna2cNsra
The Bruce Highway is closed to all traffic in both directions at Booyal, north of Childers, and is expected to be cut near Gympie in the early afternoon after the Mary River’s catchment area was inundated by another 200mm or rainfall over night.
Overnight, Queenslanders in the state’s southeast copped a second round of the deadly storm system that derailed a train on Wednesday and claimed the life of Gympie man Phil Lambert and Sunshine Coast woman Philippa Tayler, with locals reporting “scary as f***” lightning strikes adding to the intensity of the rain.
A submerged car has been washed off a Caboolture bridge - just a few inches of swift-moving water picking the Commodore up after it became stuck early this morning @7NewsBrisbane@sunriseon7pic.twitter.com/gryBO62R6K
— Jordan Bissell (@jordan_bissell7) February 24, 2022
The SES were called to more than 100 calls for help from residents in the Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast areas who reported flooding and structural damage to their properties.
Queensland Fire and Emergency Services have dispatched swift water rescue teams to 30 incidents since Wednesday, with crews on Friday morning working to free a person trapped in a van at Kogan, in the Western Downs.
A QFES spokesman said paramedics and swift water rescue crews were en route to the person after receiving reports at 6.15am that they were trapped and the water was rising rapidly.
A driver had a lucky escape from a vehicle that was swept from a causeway off Zillmans Crossing into the Caboolture River at Rocksberg about 5am on Friday.
Emergency crews rushed to the car but found nobody inside.
Dramatic footage of the white Commodore being swept down the river showed how high the river had swelled.
It comes after the dramatic rescue of two people forced to cling to trees early on Friday morning at Dallarnil, in the North Burnett region.
A QFES spokesman said the swift water rescue team were called to the Isis Highway, near Gospel Hall Rd at 3.35am to reports a car had gone into a canal where water was rising fast.
Two people from the vehicle then managed to cling to trees for more than two hours until crews reached them by 6am.
A lucky driver managed to make it to safety after being stuck in his car floodwaters near Stony Creek, northwest of Caboolture.
Police responded to the man who called for help after being trapped along the D’Aguilar Highway earlier this morning.
However, police said that by the time crews arrived the man had managed to drive his car out of danger and had gone to the local pub.
Police were also called to Beerburrum Road at Elimbah about 8.50am after reports of another car stuck in floodwaters.
Police said that by the time they had arrived on the scene, the motorist had managed to drive their car out of the shallow flood waters to safety.
While Brisbane and the Gold Coast may appear to have avoided the worst of what was expected overnight, they remain on high alert, while areas to the north of the Sunshine Coast and inland as far as Dalby are now in the firing line, with 423mm of rain falling in the six hours to 4.30am in Biggenden. Nearby Old Range Road recorded 463mm in 24 hours.
Other major rainfall totals over the same period include 315mm at Fig Tree north of Biggenden, 289mm at Paradise Dam, 241mm at Fred Haigh Dam and 158mm at Kandanga, while some areas recorded more than 160mm of rain in an hour.
Among the highest totals was Old Range Rd west of Gayndah where 90mm of rain was in half an hour and 161mm in just an hour just before 3am on Friday.
But it’s not over yet for southeast Queensland with areas of widespread prolonged heavy rainfall expected to continue, according to BOM meteorologist Brooke Pagel.
“There’s a potential for localised intense rain, dangerous and life-threatening flooding, and damaging wind gusts are also possible on the southeast coast and adjacent inland areas,” she said.
Sunshine Coast is expected to see the worst of it with severe thunderstorms warnings, including very dangerous storms and intense rainfall that could lead to life-threatening flash flooding, issued for Gympie, Somerset, Sunshine Coast, Noosa, Moreton Bay, Bundaberg, southeast of Seventeen Seventy and southwest of Eidsvold.
The wild weather is predicted to extend into Saturday morning before it starts to ease into the weekend.
“It will potentially start to ease off although it will still be raining over the weekend, but we’re hoping it won’t be as intense. Because it’s such a slow moving system, it’s hard to predict how long it’s going to last,” Ms Pagel said.
A flood watch, flood warnings and severe weather warning are current for parts of Southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales. Locations which may be affected include Toowoomba, Brisbane, Maroochydore, Gympie, Bundaberg, Kingaroy, Caboolture, Ipswich, Cherbourg, Oakey, Jimboomba and Mount Tamborine.”
Motorist wade through flood water to rescue trapped tradie
Residents across the southeast have told of being woken by cracking thunder, lightning strikes and torrential rain.
Pauline Smith from Lake Cooroibah in the Noosa hinterland said she had been “absolutely” hammered by thunder and lightning.
“All the roads around will be under,’’ she said.
Brookey McKinnon reported that there was a bridge flooded even at Mt Perry, west of Bundaberg.
Karen Davis, who lives on a permanent campsite, said her tarps had collapsed under the weight of the rain.
Many were feeling for the people of Gympie, Bundaberg, and Fraser Coast regions which went under just weeks ago.
Others were wondering how the homeless would cope under the deluge.
“This is insane, it has not stopped bucketing down here at Booyal. I think I will keep an eye out for an Ark,’’ Kris Svensson said
Melissa Muldoon said Deepwater and Baffle Creek, south of 1770, was getting hit hard.
“The lightning & thunder is scary as @#$*,” she said.
Jane Dobbie said it also poured at Russell Island, southeast of Brisbane.
“If this keeps up the southern part of the island may get cut off by flooding in the swamps from the rest of the island!”
Isabella Parslow at Glenwood said the rain had been non-stop since about midnight.
“(It) woke me up around 2 bucketing down and hasn’t stopped since … I’m expecting the dam to be overflowing,’’ she said.
Kaylea Maher said the rain at Imbil was “extreme”.
“Looks like the majority of Mary River catchment upstream from Gympie is copping it,” she said. “Hope all were prepared downstream.”
Daniel Wayne said the lightning strikes at Biggenden were incredible but “scary as f***”.
Sharon Kelland at Coolum Beach reported it “bucketing down with crazy wind”.
Tula Mae Bollendorff said she just got the cows out of flood waters “but silly things won’t go on top of the dam wall”.
“Hope if it rises more they will because I don’t think we can cross the ‘creek’, which is now a torrent river, again … there’s just nowhere left for water to go.”
BIGGEST RAINFALL TOTALS IN 24HRS TO 9AM TODAY:
Pomona: 382mm
Paradise Dam: 318mm
Moy Pocket: 287mm
Coringa: 243mm
Black MT: 225mm
Kenilworth: 213mm
Mt Glorious: 212mm
Kin Kin: 207mm
Cooroy: 193mm
Zachariah: 185mm
Townson: 175mm
Lake McDonald: 173mm
Upper springbrook 164mm
Upper Tenthill: 161mm
Mt Mee: 159mm
Thornton: 156mm
Kilkivan: 155mm
Stony Creek: 150mm
Oakwood: 144mm
Boiat Mountain: 135mm
Lower Springbrook: 133mm
Binna Burra: 130mm
Upper Western Creek: 127mm
Bellthorpe: 127mm
Beerburrum: 126mm
Maroochy: 124mm
Kalbar Wier 120mm
Eumundi: 111mm
Mt Marrow: 107mm
Beechmont: 106mm
Upper Caboolture: 100mm
Beaudesert: 89mm
Park Ridge: 83mm
Brisbane city: 22mm
The death toll from the dangerous has risen to two after police identified a Gympie dad and Belli Park woman as the victims of separate flash flooding tragedies.
A full-scale air, water and land search for Mr Lambert ended in heartbreak on Thursday morning, more than a day after the husband and father-of-three was last seen leaving work at a Gympie shopping centre.
Divers found his body about 11.30am, not far from where his motorbike was located the day prior.
Mr Lambert’s distraught wife Sue was at the scene of the search yesterday before the grim discovery, cutting a lonely and tearful figure as she walked the muddy road where multiple SES and police vehicles were parked and a Lifeflight rescue helicopter flew overhead.
Mrs Lambert wrung her hands as she peered down the creek that may have taken her husband’s life.
“I am just praying they find him,” she said at the time.
“They have to find him.”
The identity of Ms Tayler, whose car was swept into flood waters at Belli Park, was also confirmed on Thursday.
Emergency services received calls for help about 4.45am Wednesday after reports of a car trapped in floodwaters.
The submerged Honda CRV was found about 9am with Ms Tayler’s body inside.
Members of the tight-knit Sunshine Coast hinterland community said the loss of the local was extremely sad.
“She was a lovely lady and was always very happy,” a staff member at The Hub in Carters Ridge said.
“She was a regular at our store and always got the hot chips.
“It’s a very sad time for the community of Carters Ridge.”
Investigations into the tragedies continued on Thursday as the state’s southern corner braced for more wild weather.
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