Storms ravage Brisbane three times (so far)

It certainly has been an amazing past few days. It's Thursday evening and storms have again hit parts of the city, localised flooding continues, and this is the fourth night in the last five nights. Tonight is 'minor' with only 4500 electricity consumers losing power. Sunday night saw 25% of the entire region losing power, and many didn't get it back on for 48 hours. Ghastly images emerged from suburbs near where one of my schools is situated.


This morning Rene and I woke up to water views, with the sound of rushing water quite audible from the deck. Rene took these pictures near our home after I went to school this morning. Kedron Brook was close to overflowing its banks but it was quite safe. This evening as I write it is still visible from the deck but lower, although the latest downpours across the city haven't flowed through yet. A good test on our site and the worst rains and damage since the 1974 floods that caused the city to come to a complete halt.


It's going to rain on and off all night again. I hope it doesn't cause even more chaos. Fortunately only two people have lost their lives. That is amazing considering the super cell storms are so erratic.

My brother Stephen's home was safe, just the power cut off for around 24 hours. My nephew Simon came close to inundation but was spared - just! Near Toowoomba where my brother Mark lives they had over 245mm of rain, that's around 10" in the old measurement. We had no damage at all, and even kept our power. We have been extremely lucky.


Damage from the storms has affected thousands of South East Queenslanders. Over 4000 homes damaged, around 40 uninhabitable. Many schools have been damaged, some closed. My brother Stephen's school at Morayfield was closed after 125mm of rain and strong winds damaged a few buildings and brought down dozens of trees. Many of my children this week have been very tired because they haven't slept through the night for ages. I know two teachers who lost roofs and another two who moved out of their bedrooms at 1:30am this morning for fear of sleeping near trees and power lines that might finally blow down. They didn't blow over, and they did get some sleep.