Help on the way, PM tells Queenslanders

| February 27, 2022

Thousands of Queenslanders toughing it out amid widespread floods in the state’s southeast can be assured recovery preparations are underway, Prime Minister Scott Morrison says.

“This is a serious natural … flooding event that we are seeing impact right throughout everywhere from Bundaberg to the border,” he said from Brisbane late on Sunday afternoon.

“All the way out to Toowoomba and particularly in places like Gympie, this is a very serious situation.” 

With “a very anxious night” ahead for residents, the prime minister said he wanted to stress that “the planning for the recovery has already begun” and the resources and support needed were on hand.

Queensland is expected to cop more heavy rain on Monday as the crisis continues.

Severe weather warnings remain as a new system of severe storms tracks deeper into the state’s battered southeast, heightening fears the impact, especially in Brisbane, could worsen.

Beyond that, the Gold Coast and then, across the border, the NSW northern rivers region are next in line.

More than a thousand people across Queensland have already been evacuated and more than 1400 homes along the Brisbane River are likely to be inundated, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says.

“This is an extraordinary weather event and it should be treated very seriously,” she told reporters.

Mr Morrison said he wanted to commend the ADF and particularly the army.

“Three lives were saved yesterday as a direct result of their actions,” he said.

Meanwhile, the federal government would provide disaster recovery funding to affected local government areas as they were identified by Queensland authorities, he said.

Echoing Ms Palaszczuk’s concerns for public safety, Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll pleaded with people to stay off roads and out of the water.

“The issue here is that you aren’t just putting your own life at risk and other members of the public because even the members of the public are going out to conduct rescues, you are also risking emergency services.”

Flooding throughout Sunday heavily affected Gympie, Maryborough, Sunshine Coast, Ipswich and Brisbane.

Major flood warnings are in place for the Mary River, Mooloolah, Noosa and Maroochy rivers, Upper Brisbane and Stanley rivers, Laidley, Lockyer and Warrill creeks, as well as the Bremer and Logan rivers.

Police meanwhile continue to search for a yachtsman in his 70s missing after falling overboard into the swollen Brisbane River on Saturday afternoon.

The extreme rain event has killed six people in Queensland.

A 34-year-old Brisbane man died while trying to swim to safety after his car became submerged early Sunday.

Police divers found the body of a 37-year-old man in floodwaters near Gympie on Saturday, while that of a 54-year-old man was discovered at Stones Corner in inner Brisbane.

A female SES volunteer was killed when her car was swept away en route to a rescue near Ipswich on Friday, a 54-year-old man died trying to ride a motorbike through rising water at Gympie last week and a 63-year-old was found dead in a submerged car on the Sunshine Coast.

In NSW, a man died on the state’s Central Coast on Friday after his LandCruiser was carried away by local floodwaters.

A severe weather alert for the southern state spans 450km from the Queensland border to Port Macquarie.

Eleven flood warnings are current as is an evacuation alert for residents along the Clarence River near Maclean.

Premier Dominic Perrottet says 550 SES personnel are on the ground and more than 70 flood rescues have already been affected but many more are likely.

“We know that whilst there might be blue skies in certain parts of NSW that does not mean that there will not be significant flooding events that occur over the course of this week,” he said in Wollongong.