Cyclone Debbie flood emergency continues across south-east Queensland
Updated
Residents in some low-lying parts of Logan, south of Brisbane, are again being asked to consider leaving their homes as the flood emergency caused by ex-Cyclone Debbie continues.
Thousands of people fled some areas in Logan, Beaudesert and the northern Gold Coast on Friday as the Albert and Logan rivers rose and inundated homes and businesses.
The Albert River is continuing to go down now but yesterday, it reached its highest levels since the 1974 floods in Brisbane.
The Logan River reached more than 15 metres at Beaudesert yesterday and is continuing to rise downstream.
The Bureau of Meteorology said the Logan River was expected to peak at Waterford Bridge at noon today and at Eagleby later in the afternoon.
Logan Mayor Luke Smith said the Logan River still posed a serious threat.
"We're anticipating 323 properties right across the city that will have had some kind of flooding — 211 homes that will be inundated — but of course it's wait and see," he said.
Councillor Smith said while peaks had been reached in some areas, water levels are expected to stay elevated for another 24 to 48 hours.
'Everybody helped everybody'
The community of Beenleigh at Logan has been badly affected by floodwaters, with homes and property damaged.
Many Beenleigh streets have been cut off by floodwater, houses have been flooded and streets are strewn with debris and mud.
People are trying to mop up, but it will be a huge clean-up task.
Beenleigh resident Michael Loane was one of many locals who rushed to help lower-lying neighbours as the water rose.
"We went next door to Paul's house, who's been a friend of ours for years, and in his back shed the water was up to our knees. About half an hour, an hour later, it was just up to our chest — it was just amazing how quick it came, we've never seen it like that before," he said.
"We're a pretty close community here and our family has been here fore over 60 years and same as the people next door.
"We went straight out and started unloading their stuff straight out of their shed into their footpath.
"Everyone helped everybody — by an hour we had his whole shed cleared ... within an hour the whole house was pretty much cleared — the TV, the fridge, everything on their footpath.
"It's just a really close community out here ... everyone pitches in. We're real old-school around here, we help everybody out."
Veronica Thomson had just moved info the Beenleigh area and said she was shocked by the amount of water on the streets.
"The water was actually backwashing the lids on the drains — [they] were starting to lift, so water was coming up out of there," she said.
"It just kept getting higher and higher."
Thousands remain without electricity
Energex said 23,000 properties in south-east Queensland remain without power, with most on the Sunshine Coast, which was hard hit when Debbie moved through on Thursday night.
At the height of the wild weather, more than 700 powerlines were knocked out in the south-east, leaving more than 160,000 properties blacked out.
Energex spokesman Ty Marega said repair crews were making steady progress but floodwaters were making access difficult and more than 22,000 properties remain without power.
"Areas around Burleigh Heads, Currumbin, Nerang, Beenleigh, Beaudesert are some of the worst affected areas. Also on the Sunshine Coast, we're looking at north coast, Gympie and areas around there," he said.
"Flooding is still a factor which is preventing us from accessing a lot of areas to make full assessment of how bad the damage is in some parts of the region."
Topics: emergency-incidents, disasters-and-accidents, floods, weather, beenleigh-4207, qld, australia, logan-central-4114
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