NSW Queensland floods LIVE updates SES issues evacuation orders for Northern Rivers residents south-east Queensland situation worsens
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NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and emergency services representatives are providing an update on the floods affecting the state.
Non-urgent surgery, coronavirus testing and vaccination services have been suspended in northern NSW amid the recent floods.
Hospital emergency departments will remain open with local health authorities asking people to not hesitate to attend a hospital if they require urgent medical attention.
The town of Lismore has been inundated with rainfall with flood levels expected to reach 14.4 metres at Wilsons River this afternoon. Credit:Elise Derwin
Tweed Hospital, Byron Central Hospital, Lismore Base Hospital and North Street Grafton's coronavirus testing clinics will remain shut tomorrow, Northern NSW Local Health District said in a statement.
"Please take a rapid antigen test or present to an alternative clinic or your nearest emergency department for COVID-19 testing," it read.
NSW Health's COVID-19 vaccination clinics in the area, including Tweed Mall, Byron Bay Services Club, Molesworth Street Lismore and Prince Street Grafton, will also remain shut tomorrow.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has warned floods are set to worsen in the coming days.
In the past 24 hours in NSW, there have been more than 500 flood rescues, with 927 requests for assistance.
There are 12 evacuation orders in place across the state with around 16,000 people believed to be affected.
Severe flooding hits Lismore in northern NSW in the worst flood ever recorded on Monday.Credit:Elise Derwin
"Many would have seen distressing images of survival and there are many distressing reports, particularly around the Lismore area, of people who are isolated and currently stranded. And I want to make it clear that we are doing everything," Mr Perrottet said.
It may have been marketed as an all-weather pitch, but the surface at Mitchelton Football Club in Brisbane proved no match for this week's floods.
Club president Gary Green said nothing could be done when a nearby raging creek broke its barge and flooded the club's fields in Everton Park.
Damage after the floods at Michelton Football Club in Everton Park, QLD.Credit:Michelton Football Club
Green said just removing the devastated surface will set the club back around one million dollars.
"I have lived in the area for 70 years, and I've never seen water up like it was," he said on Monday afternoon.
"We've had about 100 plus people all morning and cleaning up rubbish. [The local community is] a big family."
There are some truly heartbreaking stories coming out of today's horror day of floods.
Herald reporter Catherine Naylor is on the ground in Lismore and spoke to resident Noel Lyon.
Lyon was being rescued when he had a moment of sheer terror, she writes.
Noel Leon with his three-month-old baby rescued from the flooding hotel.Credit:Elise Derwin
He's looking down Lismore's main road, through the driving rain, trying to count his family. He cradles his three-month-old daughter in his arms.
She's wrapped in a sheepskin rug, and he's desperately trying to keep the rain off her face.
His voice takes on an edge of panic as he realises he can't see his two-year-old daughter. "Wait. Where's Lala? Lala! Who's got Lala?"
It lasts just a minute. Someone calls out that they're carrying the toddler. Reunited, sodden, the family walk up the hill to a waiting minibus that will take them to an evacuation centre at Southern Cross University.
The flood refugees just keep coming. Boatloads of them. They're soaked and in shock. They speak of the speed at which they watched the water rise, how they never thought their place would go under, how much worse this flood is than even the infamous flood of 1974.
In East Lismore, hundreds of metres from the banks of the Wilson River, the muddy brown waters of the river now lap the Bruxner Highway, almost touching the traffic lights that hang overhead.
Usually, this road is full of cars and semi-trailers, travelling the busy main route between Lismore and Ballina, and beyond that to Casino.
Now dozens of boats travel along it instead, a random fleet of private and rescue boats, and even canoes, pulling up where the water stops to deliver stunned families, elderly people, dogs and chickens into the hands of soldiers, police and SES volunteers who guide them into buses to take them to the university.
The Bureau of Meteorology has put out a major flood warning for the Wilsons River after the Lismore levee overtopped early on Monday morning and the river level has exceeded the March 1974 flood peak of 12.15 metres.
Previously, the record flood level was set in February 1954 at 12.27 metres.
Rainfall between 300-700mm has been recorded for northern parts of the Northern Rivers in the last 24 hours as flood warnings continue to pop up along the east coast of NSW and Queensland.
Residents in Grafton are being urged to stay on high alert after the Bureau of Meteorology issued a major flood warning on Monday for towns along the Clarence River.
Grafton, Ulmarra and Maclean are experiencing flooding similar to the March 2021 floods, as heavy rainfall continues to persist in the area.
The Clarence River in Grafton is set to reach 7.30 metres by Monday evening.
A man and his dog have been found dead in a submerged vehicle on the Gold Coast, marking the eighth Queensland death of the floods so far.
The vehicle was believed to have been driven 30 to 40 metres into floodwaters in the Currumbin Valley about 3am on Monday.
Another person has died as a result of the floods. Credit:Elise Derwin
Police and a swift water rescue team were unable to find the vehicle until Surf Life Saving Queensland were called in with an inflatable rescue boat.
The man, believed to be in his 50s, was found in the vehicle about 11am.
It comes as the search resumed for a man who is believed to have been washed down a drain on Sunday.
As we enter the afternoon, many are still in dangerous conditions waiting to be rescued.
Lismore local Lucy Vader took to her personal Facebook page in a desperate plea as she waits on her roof for assistance.
"The water is still rising, my dog is stuck inside the house," she says in a video posted to Facebook.
"I'm on a steep roof that's slimy."
Lucy Vader has issued a desperate plea from her roof in Lismore.
Lismore resident Katie Davis is also on the roof of her house with her three young daughters.
"The neighbours that are stuck in their roofs next door are just screaming for help, it is heartbreaking to listen to them," she told the Today Show.
"They're just constantly banging on the tin roof and screaming for help."
As the situation in Lismore continues to unfold, we are seeing some devastating scenes.
The Lismore levee was breached on Monday morning, and the Bureau of Meteorology says this is the city's worst flood in recorded history.
Take a look at photos from the scene below.
The operators of Wivenhoe Dam, the major dam servicing southeast Queensland, have defended how it has been operated during the recent rain event from criticism they might have exacerbated the flood situation.
The scale of the amount of water which has flowed into the catchment is becoming clearer, with the dam hitting a little over 180 per cent of its capacity early on Monday morning as inflows peaked.
That's compared to November last year when it was at 39.3 per cent and authorities were moving to impose water restrictions.
As recently as Thursday last week the dam was at 58.5 per cent capacity after several weeks of regular rain, and on Friday it was at 80.6 per cent.
Mike Foster from SEQWater said the dam had "held back" approximately 2.2 million megalitres of water from the Brisbane river catchment.
"That is the dam acting as it is supposed to" he said.
"The flooding unfortunately we're experiencing in Brisbane certainly would have been worse without the dam."
A commission of inquiry into the 2011 floods of Brisbane found that mismanagement of outflows from Wivenhoe contributed significantly to subsequent flooding downstream.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the opposite was true in this case, and that the dam had prevented much greater flooding.
"What happened here is that everyone expected conditions to ease, but they didn't, and this rain bomb stayed over the entire southest [Queensland], and it had a big impact on the catchments and the streams," the Premier said.
"That is unpredictable, not even the Bureau saw that coming."
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