Queensland storms: Deaths after cars washed away in floods
AS DEVASTATING storms swept through Queensland last night five people died in flood waters.
FIVE lives were lost as a weather system battered southeast Queensland on Friday.
Tamra McDonald, 39, her father Tony, 74, and son Tyler, 5, from Elimbah near Caboolture died only minutes from home when they entered the floodwaters in the 4WD and were swept to their death.
The driver of a second 4WD, Emmett O’Brien, 49, was killed when his ute was swept off the road at the same location but two council workers were able to pluck his 16-year-old son Keegan and 21-year-old stepdaughter Tegan to safety.
An as yet unnamed 75-year-old man died when his car was swept off the road in nearby Burpengary.
His 68-year-old wife was found clinging to a tree by a swiftwater rescue crew.
EARLIER: TWO teenagers whose father was killed during last night’s wild weather were reportedly thrown a rope lifeline by council workers in the area.
Police this morning confirmed that the five people who perished during Queensland’s wild weather were in cars attempting to cross flooded roads.
Two four-wheel-drives entered water across Beerburrum Road at Caboolture, north of Brisbane, about 5.30pm on Friday.
A 49-year-old man in one car drowned while his 21-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son managed to escape.
All three occupants of the other vehicle — a 74-year-old man, 39-year-old woman, and five-year-old boy — were swept to their deaths.
In a separate incident, a 74-year-old man drowned at nearby Burpengary after attempting to cross a flooded road in a sedan.
His wife, aged 68, was rescued after swimming to a nearby tree.
Police said the deaths tragically highlighted the dangers of driving into flood waters.
An investigation will examine whether the two drivers on Beerburrum Rd ignored warning signs.
It is understood that there were signs at least on the southern side of King John Creek and Moreton Bay Regional Council workers were in the area at the time.
“The road was well and truly flooded and the vehicles have entered a flooded road,” Inspector Lee Jeffries said.
“This is the tragic outcome of vehicles entering flooded roads.”
Inspector Jeffries said the cars followed each other into the flood but there was no connection between the occupants.
Both drivers were from Elimbah just north of Caboolture.
The raging creek came up over the guard rails and swept the vehicles against a railway bridge.
The people in the ute — the 64-year-old male driver, a. 39-year-old woman and a boy, 5, were all killed.
The occupants of the four wheel drive managed to get free. A 21-year-old woman and her brother, 16, were carried under the bridge to the other side of the rail line and were helped to safety by council staff using ropes.
But their father, 49, could not be found. His body was recovered nearby at 6am today.
Moreton Bay Mayor Allan Sutherland said they had been monitoring the weather situation almost minute-by-minute during the day.
“It was expected, a huge downpour but what was not expected was the amount of chaos.
It was catastrophic.
About 200 roads were closed across the region at the peak. We were getting one road per minute.”
EARLIER: THE toll from southeast Queensland’s deadly deluge has risen to five, with police this morning confirming that the body of a 49-year-old man had been found at Caboolture.
His vehicle had been swept off the road by raging flood waters at Beerburrum Road — at the same spot where three other people died in another car.
The man’s body had been washed along King John Creek to the other side of rail lines at Dancers Rd.
Two other people are believed to have escaped from the vehicle.
Police have confirmed that the three people who died at the same location last night were a 74-year-old man, a 39-year-old woman believed to be his wife and a boy aged about 5.
As the flood waters subsided today, the two vehicles — a white ute and a maroon four-wheel-drive — were propped nose-down against a railway bridge where the torrent hurled them.
A fifth victim, a 75-year-old man, died when his vehicle was caught in surging waters from the Burpengary Creek at Morayfield.
At around 8.30pm last night, police received information that a vehicle had been swept away by flood waters in the area near Burpengary Creek.
Police and emergency services attended the scene on Morayfield Road at Burpengary, and a QFES Swift Water Rescue team was able to rescue a 68-year-old woman who was to clinging to a tree in flood waters.
At around 3am this morning police located the body of the 75-year-old man, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
A QFRS spokesman said crews were still working this morning.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my whole career”.
Since yesterday afternoon, swift water crews and SES flood boat operators have helped with more than 30 rescues of people in vehicles, stranded in flood water.
As at 7am today, more than 1800 requests for assistance have been recorded since 5pm on Thursday.
The majority of the requests recorded were for assistance with flood damage and sandbagging and most were in the Brisbane area.
EARLIER: Three people, including an eight-year-old boy, have died in floodwaters triggered by a ferocious deluge the weather bureau described as “off the scale”.
The tragedy — which also claimed the lives of a man in his 70s and a woman in her 30s — occurred at Dances Rd in Caboolture about 5.35pm yesterday.
AS IT HAPPENED: Yesterday’s rolling coverage
ROAD CLOSURES: Complete list for the southeast
Police are investigating the possibility the car was swept away when it drove around a road-closed sign and entered floodwaters.
Asked if the road was closed at the time, Assistant Commissioner Dawson replied: “I don’t know, that will obviously come out in the investigation.”
An emotional Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk last night said the state was “deeply saddened” by the loss of life.
Southeast’s extreme weather event
“On behalf of all of Queensland, we express our deepest sympathies. This is a tragedy,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
She said the storm cell, an east coast low, had been an extreme weather event, with Caboolture hardest hit.
The region received 333mm of rain yesterday, with 277mm falling in three hours.
“Having spoken to the Bureau of Meteorology, for them this is off the scale,” she said.
The system was last night expected to track down the Gold Coast, particularly impacting the Hinterland, before easing to showers.
The record-breaking rain created chaos on the roads and hampered the efforts of paramedics trying to reach a 16-year-old girl struck by lightning at Burpengary.
Emergency crews received dozens of reports of cars trapped in floodwaters across Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast.
Motorists clambered onto car roofs, public transport ground to a halt and flights were cancelled as a devastating deluge was unleashed on southeast Queensland.
Last night, there was panic along Sandgate Rd at Virginia, with motorists stranded for more than two hours and water was rising around them.
The RACQ Traffic Response Units reported vehicles floating down roads in Brisbane’s north, while other motorists stood on their car roofs on the Bruce Highway.
Swiftwater crews were kept busy throughout the downpour, rescuing two young women from a car on Old Gympie Rd at Caboolture, while another person was trapped on their car’s bonnet at Logan.
Despite the dangerous conditions, foolhardy motorists ignored pleas from emergency services to stay off the roads.
Thousands of passengers were forced to wait for hours, with trains and buses were either suspended or delayed as public transport around the entire southeast came to a standstill.
The Caboolture, Beenleigh and Gold Coast train lines were suspended yesterday afternoon, and other train lines were delayed for more than an hour. Bus services were also cancelled or diverted around flooded roads.
Last night, eight passengers and a driver were rescued in a boat after being trapped in a bus on Deshon St, Coorparoo, amid rising floodwaters.
School buses were also suspended, leaving many students stranded.
Virgin Australia flights were also cancelled to and from the Gold Coast yesterday.
The Bureau of Meteorology said the downpour eclipsed the Brisbane daily rainfall record from 1980, when 149mm fell on May 9.
By late yesterday, that record was well and truly toppled as gauges flowed over 330mm at Caboolture and 181mm in Brisbane.
The storm crossed from Fraser Island close to Caboolture around midday, with its most intense period striking from 1.30pm to 4pm as it settled in the area, according to forecaster Michael Knapp.
“The thunderstorms and the low were all interconnected, you wouldn’t have had the instability without the low,” he said. “We had strong winds on the coast of up to 90km/h.”
Images surfaced on social media of flooding at Morayfield shopping centre, with the bottom of escalators disappearing beneath the water.
Due to the extreme nature of the weather system, SEQ Water made the decision at 8pm last night to release water from Wivenhoe Dam, which was expected to cause some localised flooding downstream.
Events were also cancelled across the southeast — including the opening night of the Urban Country Music Festival — in the interests of public safety. The Anzac Test was postponed until tomorrow afternoon at Suncorp after the field resembled a pool.
In a 24-hour period from 5pm Thursday, the SES received more than 1230 requests for help, with 710 of those relating to the Brisbane area.
More than 10,000 homes and businesses were without power last night, according to Energex.
Spills ease dam levels
ROAD repairs, debris clearing and leaking roofs will form the brunt of the mop-up effort across the southeast today following yesterday’s monster storm.
Areas downstream of spilling dams will also be on alert for localised flooding as water is released from the swollen reserves.
Roads were expected to be closed for several days down stream from Wivenhoe Dam at Twin Bridges and Savages Crossing after a controlled release of water at 8 o’clock last night.
Councils were preparing to count the cost of the damage following the deluge, with the Sunshine Coast and Moreton Bay copping the brunt.
It comes as the Insurance Council of Australia revealed the damage bill from November’s supercell storm has topped $1.3 billion.
But the Bureau of Meteorology predicted conditions should have eased by early today.
Bureau forecaster Michael Knapp said despite the deluge, today and tomorrow were expected to be mostly sunny with just a few showers.
“It’s just the nature of the beast,” he said.
Mr Knapp said Caboolture was hit with the biggest drenching, with 300mm coming down in just a few hours, while the northern suburbs of Brisbane did not fare much better.
A decision to release water from Wivenhoe Dam was made at 8pm, with flooding from the spill expected to inundate Twin Bridges and Savages Crossing at Fernvale.
A Somerset Regional Council spokeswoman said those river crossing roads could expect to be closed for several days, but residents in the area were well prepared.
Water was also set to be released from North Pine Dam, which would cause flooding at Youngs Crossing at Joyner and Sweeney Reserve.
Water Supply Minister Mark Bailey said the decision to release was due to the high inflow of water.
“I’m advised impacts are only expected to relate to the closure of minor river crossings, with controlled releases expected to occur over the next few days,” he said.
Seqwater warned last night “significant overflows” were possible from 11 ungated dams, which have no controlled release, including at Borumba, Baroon Pocket, Cedar Pocket, Enoggera, Lake MacDonald, Gold Creek, Hinze and Wappa.
Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said the SES were called out to tarp up leaking roofs.
“We think a lot of that is in relation to damage done from November’s hailstorm and roofs still waiting for repairs,” he said. “The main concern with this type of rain is creek flooding. It’s the same old hot spots around the city when it reaches capacity ... Breakfast Creek and Norman Creek also present flooding potential.”
But he said that with the conditions easing overnight, repairing potholes in the roads caused by the deluge was likely to be the council’s biggest clean-up task.
Cr Quirk said debris clearing may be required if the winds picked up overnight, but it was not expected to be a major issue.
The Insurance Council of Australia revealed November’s super storm had resulted in 120,444 claims — 78,042 relating to motor vehicles, 22,500 for damage to homes, while the rest related to commercial claims.
— Matthew Killoran, Trenton Akers, Rhian Deutrom, Kate McKenna, Chris Honnery
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