More local news of the flooding from Mt. Alford, Boonah, Qld, Australia

Just sharing a note received today from Beryl Hopson at Mt. Alford

I’ll try to put you in the picture. We are high and dry (well, inside the house) but we have had a lot of rain. We were cut off from Boonah yesterday (and on some other days) as the creeks and gullies come up but Don and Wendy went to town this morning so it must be OK again. Of course if we get more rain, it doesn’t take much to flood as the creeks are already swollen and the ground is saturated. 
 
We are about 1 3/4 hours from Toowoomba – closer as the crow flies but we have to go around or over a mountain range to get there. (Two ways but the same distance.) It was just unimaginable as T’ba is on top of a range and how so much water could accumulate and rush so quickly is mind-boggling. That water then flows down through the Lockyer Valley which would have been having plenty of rain anyway and finally into the Brisbane River. Phi’s boss is near Gatton (about 1 hour from us) in the Lockyer Valley and so their house was inundated I believe. The Lockyer Valley is the next valley to us but I guess you could say our neighbours. Graham and Betty Windolf live there and their families. Geoff rang them and they are all OK but their farm went under water. That area is known as the salad bowl of south east Qld. so all the crops would be ruined and vegies will be in short supply. It all happened so quickly at T’ba so no one had any warning. A bit further out west, Chinchilla, where Steve and Trish Smith live (Steve did the videoing when you and Mike were last here) had two floods. They told us they were above the flood level so that was good. 
 
The rain and floods are so widespread. They are saying that 75% of Qld is affected and the floods have now spread into northern NSW. We have been having rain on and off for weeks – we have had 300 mls. this year – that is about 12 inches and other places have had much more. One town had 12″ in one night. Central Qld. was affected first and some towns have had two major floods in as many weeks. Then the rain depression moved south and so it was our turn. Ipswich is under water at present as is Brisbane. A lot of the problem is from rain further inland which has to make its way to the coast via the rivers. The Bremer River in Ipswich flows into the Brisbane River so it all compounds. It is a real disaster as many houses and shops are completely covered with water, others to varying degrees. TV images show boats, tanks, drums, pontoons, etc. flowing down the river, hitting bridge pylons, smashing and sinking. Quite a few people live beside the river and have their own boat or yacht which is great when the weather is fine. Now some of them are out in the middle of the bay I guess or on the river bed. Ipswich and Brisbane had a very big flood in 1974 and this one is as big if not bigger. 
 
A second dam was built after that flood for mitigation purposes. The rain has just been so constant that thousands of litres of water have been released each day for weeks out of that dam but it was still not sufficient. Imagine if that dam hadn’t been built. Brisbane would be off the map by now. To make matters worse, the river at Brisbane is tidal and king tides are being experienced just now so that pushes the water level up even higher. What makes the T’ba and Lockyer Valley disaster even worse is that 10 people are confirmed dead and about 90 people are missing. That gives some idea of how quickly the torrent came. Further north in central Qld. 4 or 5 died and most of these were because they tried to drive through the water on the road.