Residents and business owners in the city of Brisbane are beginning a mammoth clean up operation as floodwaters that engulfed the city continue to recede.
Brisbane City Council says it will initially focus on restoring power and running water to homes, clearing and re-opening main and local roads around the city today and getting traffic infrastructure back up and working.
After that, the council will turn its attention to assisting residents and business owners return to the 14,972 homes and businesses that were completely swamped and 18,025 partially flooded.
”I’m calling on Brisbane residents to put their shoulders to the wheel and get involved in what will be the biggest community clean-up since 1974,” Brisbane mayor Campbell Newman said last night.
”Everyone can contribute in some way and I ask residents not affected by the flooding to think about grabbing a shovel, putting on their safety gear and lending a hand to Brisbane’s flooding victims. I also urge anyone who owns a Bobcat, dump truck, front-end loader, water tanker or other heavy equipment or plant to give us a hand with the clean-up.”
The council has released a special guide for business owners returning to their premises, urging them to ensure that electrical wiring is safe before they begin the clean-up task.
But as Brisbane and Ipswich begin the clean-up, the flood crisis has moved on to another part of the state. The regional town of Goondiwindi, which is west of Brisbane on the border with NSW, is bracing for flooding as Macintyre River threatens the town’s levee wall.
The list of companies affected by flooding around Queensland is also continuing to grow, with rail companies QR National and Asciano bracing for a big drop in coal shipments.
Telstra is reported to be preparing for a $50 million clean-up bill, while analysts suggest banking group Bank of Queensland could see 10% sliced off its full-year profit due to flood-related costs. The bank has been forced to close 26 branches and its CBD headquarters have been shut down by flood waters.
Smaller rival credit union CUA has also had a rough week – its city headquarters and disaster recovery centre were inaccessable due to power outages. Customers have had trouble accessing funds this week as a result, but all transactional are now fully available.
Exactly when the Brisbane CBD will be back up and running remains unclear at this stage. While floodwaters are receding, the extent of the damage to buildings and infrastructure is still not clear.
This morning, there have been concerns that an entire city street – Mary Street – could buckle due to damage.
Most businesses are expected to start re-opening or at least returning to start cleaning up on January 17 or 18.
While the estimated cost of rebuilding and clean-up has now risen to more than $5 billion, government bodies and industry groups have moved to provide a range of assistance programs to residences and businesses who have been affected. These include:
The death toll from the floods that hit Toowoomba and Brisbane remains at 15, while there are still 61 people unaccounted for. Grave fears are held for at least a dozen of these people, most of whom are residents of the hard-hit Lockyer Valley.
While these size and scale of the disaster are still being assessed, Brisbane mayor Campbell Newman has backed calls for an open, transparent public inquiry into the disaster, similar to the Royal Commission held in Victoria after the bushfire disaster of 2008.
“I certainly think there needs to be a public inquiry into how the state and local governments, across Queensland, can better protect their communities from the risks of flooding that we will have in future with extreme weather events.”
“I would be more than happy to front up and put my views on the table about these matters and I welcome such an inquiry. Everyone has to front up, accept what has happened.”
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
