Queensland Flood Press Conference 10 January 2011

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Premier and Minister for the Arts
The Honourable Anna Bligh

EMQ, KEDRON
10PM MONDAY

PREMIER ANNA BLIGH: The flood crisis in Queensland has deepened, seriously over the past several hours. We now have serious flooding return to the southwest of our state and return with a vengeance.

If I can take you through some of the incidents we’re managing overnight.

We’re now seeing the waters peaking in the town of Dalby higher than they did in the previous event in Dalby. Two evacuation centres have been set up in the last few hours and we now have 165 people out of their homes and in evacuation centres in the town of Dalby.

Similarly in Chinchilla, we now have the river rising very quickly and we anticipate it will be at 7 metres by early tomorrow morning. By way of contrast on the 28th of December it peaked at 7.25. It will continue to rise above 7 metres throughout the rest of tomorrow. Again, evacuations are occurring in Chinchilla at the moment; 30 homes have already been evacuated. These are the same 30 homes that were evacuated some 10 or 11 days ago and there are further evacuations occurring.

The town of Condamine is now on serious watch. The river at Condamine is also rising very quickly and is now at about 9 metres. But models are showing that it could by the end of this week get to the 14 and 15 metre mark which is the point at which we triggered evacuation of the whole town some eight or nine days ago.

So across Dalby, Chinchilla and Condamine and we also have reports tonight, we are monitoring very closely at Meandarra, we are seeing new peaks and new flood records being set overnight and evacuations occurring.

But by far the most critical incident that we are managing this evening is the incident that started this afternoon in Toowoomba and has been making its way with a very large body of water down the Toowoomba range and into the Lockyer Valley.

What we saw in Toowoomba was the water rise at lightning speed. Mother Nature has unleased something shocking on the Toowoomba region and we’ve seen it move very quickly down the range. The river in Gatton this afternoon, over the course of the afternoon, has risen nine metres.

I can confirm, tragically, that we have now got confirmation of four deaths arising out of this incident. A woman and a male child deceased in the Toowoomba CBD with no other missing persons reported at this stage in the Toowoomba CBD. At Murphy’s Creek in Toowoomba we have confirmed the death of one man and a male child both of whom believed to have been washed away from a house.

We are unable to reach some 30 people in the town of Grantham. They have gathered together in a primary school at Grantham. They are completely isolated by fast moving floodwaters. We have unconfirmed reports out of Grantham that have us holding very grave fears for the safety of a number of people in the Grantham Township. The waters are however starting to recede at Grantham and emergency workers are trying to get into that town tonight to make sure those people are safe and to confirm some of those reports.

We also have further reports of another six people missing in and around the Withcott area. We believe we are looking for at least three young pedestrians and 2 vehicles that were seen to be washed away.

We also have numerous people who have been stranded on rooftops as the water has moved in very quickly. There have to date been 43 rescues of people from rooftops in the Withcott Valley by EMQ helicopters. Unfortunately heavy fog and weather have now grounded those helicopters but we do have one helicopter with night vision on standby ready to go in if we see any clearance in that weather at any point overnight. We do believe we still have a large number of people stranded on those rooftops. I should say that as fast as that water has been moving up, as its moving way down the Valley we’re also seeing those waters going down. So we do hold very grave fears for those confirmed stranded on rooftops although there have been 43 very dramatic rooftop rescues by helicopter and emergency services personnel in the last few hours.

We have now set up a major incident room here in Brisbane’s CBD in relation to this issue. I should say we also have a number of roads cut, the Warrego Highway cut in a number of places. This will mean, and we’ll have to reassess it tomorrow, but with the Bruce Highway cut and the Western route now cut we will see significant supply issues into Central and Northern Queensland.

So, in total, all possible resources, including ADF resources, will be activated at first light tomorrow to begin further search and rescue. We will be getting out at first light to continue the search for those that have been notified as missing and to continue the rescue efforts of those that have been stranded on rooftops.

What we have here in Queensland tonight is a very grim and desperate situation. There are many Queenslanders tonight in critical and dire circumstances; emergency workers out facing risky situations and many people facing a very terrifying night. I think we can all say that our thoughts are with them over the coming hours and we pray and hope they’ll be safe when first light comes tomorrow morning.

I will invite the Commissioner of Police to make some comments. This is now a very large Police operation; there are many emergency services personnel deployed right across the southwest and into the Lockyer Valley region. As I said, a desperate and grim situation being managed tonight by our emergency people.

POLICE COMMISSIONER, BOB ATKINSON: Thank you Premier. The Premier has summed that up comprehensively. This has been a terrible day, a terrible day. Early reports indicate that what hit Toowoomba could perhaps best be described as an inland instant tsunami with a massive wall of water that has gone straight down through the Lockyer Valley. And as the Premier said, whilst we have confirmed advice of four people deceased, we have grave concerns for the safety of others at Grantham and Withcott. We’re doing all we can tonight but again, as the Premier indicated, we won’t have a full appreciation of this until at least first light. Happy to take any questions

JOURNALIST: Grantham and Withcott, 30 people isolated, do we know where they are?

POLICE COMMISSIONER: Yes, very difficult set of circumstances. The weather is atrocious, communications are bad and they are cut off. What we believe is that 30 people are together in the primary school. We think that about another dozen or so are at a private residence but that’s yet to be confirmed. We’re not in a position yet to know precise numbers or identities of people missing but the circumstances are such that we have grave concerns for the safety of people in the Grantham area generally.

JOURNALIST: Premier, have you asked the question as to why there wasn’t more warning?

PREMIER: Clearly, as the Commissioner said, all indications at this stage are that the event that started in Toowoomba can only be described as a complete freak of nature. An extraordinary deluge that almost came out of nowhere, in an otherwise very heavy rainfall deluge. Obviously, we’ll be working with the weather Bureau to understand this event more carefully tomorrow but right now we are concerned for the safety of many people in this area who are stranded in desperate and dangerous circumstances and for our emergency services and police who are out at the frontline in some of the most unsafe conditions. This is without doubt our darkest hour of the last fortnight.

JOURNALIST: What are communications like with those areas?

POLICE COMMISSIONER: Very difficult but we’re doing all we can in that regard and certainly in all of those places that the Premier mentioned can I say to you that in Chinchilla, Condamine, Dalby, Withcott, Grantham, Gatton, Toowoomba itself; everything possible is being done tonight to…for example in Toowoomba a number of vehicles were swept away and many of you, not all of you would have seen the footage and I doubt that in the history of Toowoomba anything like that has ever happened in Toowoomba, it’s quite extraordinary. So every vehicle that was swept away, no matter what the circumstances, of where that vehicle is, we’re endeavouring to get into those vehicles and see if there is anyone trapped inside. So we’re doing all we can tonight but it’s just impossible to complete this tonight and only tomorrow will we know the full extent of this in that area.

JOURNALIST: And is part of that, and I know you mentioned the fog, but is part of that, is the water still raging?

POLICE COMMISSIONER: As the Premier indicated, fortunately its dropping almost as rapidly as it accelerated in the first place. But we’re tracking the movement at the moment its heading towards Lowood and that area, ultimately it will join up with the Brisbane River. We think somewhere in between six and 12 hours time, then about 12 hours after that we think it’ll probably reach Moggill. The Bureau of Meteorology are working with us to do modelling in terms of what that is likely to mean and we hope to have those results in the next three to four hours.

PREMIER: Effectively what we’ve seen is a wall of water, in some places up to eight metres at a time, coming down that Valley. So as it moves through, the water is dropping reasonably quickly behind it but leaving a trail of destruction and leaving people isolated. This will affect the modelling I talked about this afternoon for Ipswich and Brisbane, more likely implications for Brisbane but that is still being worked through. As we said, the meeting tonight has been connecting with all of the local disaster committees that have now activated or re-activated in every one of these areas. There is a disaster co-ordination centre being established in Toowoomba and a major Police incidence room here in Brisbane to manage this.

JOURNALIST: And have you been warned of any more rainfall for the region?

PREMIER: Yes, we’re expecting significant new rainfall. If you look at the BOM site, you’ll see a very significant storm cell moving across. So the rescue operations have been seriously hampered by rainfall. What we’re also seeing in Chinchilla, Dalby and Condamine further rain that’s complicating the rise of those rivers.

JOURNALIST: Premier, are you confident that the resources you have in Queensland are sufficient or will you call on other states?

PREMIER: We have deployed every possible asset into the Valley this evening. What is hampering operations is the weather and further resources would not change that. We’ve already called on helicopters from northern New South Wales and they’re stationed here ready to take off at first light. The scale of what is unfolding in the Lockyer Valley and again in the southwest will test our resources and we have plenty of offers of help from other states and we will certainly call on those as we need them.

JOURNALIST: Will you be travelling to Toowoomba tomorrow?

PREMIER: I will be out in these areas as quickly as possible tomorrow but we’ll just have to see what first light brings and we certainly won’t be doing anything that would hamper rescue operations; that will be our first priority.

JOURNALIST: Premier, can you just clarify that there are 30 people missing?

PREMIER: No, we have 30 people isolated at Grantham. But in addition to that we have reports of six missing persons that we are continuing to search for and we have four confirmed deaths. But as I said in the Grantham area, while we know there are 30 people, we have had some other unconfirmed reports potentially of other missing people. So we hold very grave concerns, communications are basically non-existent so we are doing our best to get people in there tonight and we hope to be able to reach those people and get a better assessment of the condition they’re in, if there are injuries, whether there are any other safety concerns.

JOURNALIST: Will the flood gates to Wivenhoe Dam be closed?

PREMIER: No, we’ll continue to…at this stage we will continue to plan releases over the next few days. That’s absolutely critical to managing the water that’s coming into the Wivenhoe catchment. Obviously the modellers will have to look at what the implications of this weather event are and what that might mean for the release strategy but my understanding is that if we closed the gates we would certainly see the dam reach a critical overspill.

POLICE COMMISSIONER: Thank you for covering this, as soon as we are able to we will keep you advised of latest developments. That may be during the course of the night but may not be possible until daybreak.

JOURNALIST: Just one last one. Are there concerns that more people may (inaudible)

POLICE COMMISSIONER: Yes, I think that is what we were trying to indicate. The six that are missing are the six that are definitively known, reported to us. That’s one definitely at Grantham and then five at Withcott. They’re minimum numbers, absolute minimums. As the Premier indicated there are other less specific reports that cause us to have grave fears and concerns for people at Grantham particularly. We’re not in a position to give detail.

PREMIER: Partly because they’ve been isolated. We can’t get an official report that we can confirm for you but we’ve certainly had unconfirmed reports of further missing people in the Grantham area.

Thank you.

ENDS

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