Brisbane Floods

As most will have by now heard, the peak was under thr prediction. I just conducted a tour of our area, and while a few properties have had inundation, the severity is less than expected. Only a couple of our managements have recorded flooding, so no doubt a lot of relieved owners. Hope you all fared as well. Out hearts go out to those in the badly effected areas.
 
my heart goes out to all investment owners, tenants and Property managers who are having to deal with this and how they are going to deal with trying to re-locate the tenants. I have no idea how that will all go down and trying to keep within the tenancies act... i just hope that all tenants/landlords effected are reasonable and dont try to milk the situation for their own benefit

glad to hear that your properties are reasonably ok, it must be a huge relief!
 
As most will have by now heard, the peak was under thr prediction. I just conducted a tour of our area, and while a few properties have had inundation, the severity is less than expected. Only a couple of our managements have recorded flooding, so no doubt a lot of relieved owners. Hope you all fared as well. Out hearts go out to those in the badly effected areas.

total media beat up brisbane is...............the river will be down in a few days........................tv stations are vying for ratings.....im sick to death of ch 9 stating such false info about many areas being so bad............for sure there are some that are doing it tough but generally most of brisbane is high and dry

back to normal in two weeks people.............
 
my heart goes out to all investment owners, tenants and Property managers who are having to deal with this and how they are going to deal with trying to re-locate the tenants. I have no idea how that will all go down and trying to keep within the tenancies act... i just hope that all tenants/landlords effected are reasonable and dont try to milk the situation for their own benefit

glad to hear that your properties are reasonably ok, it must be a huge relief!

Amadio posted a great link in another thread which was a facts sheet about (legal?) responsbilities of tenants & landlords in just this type of flood situation...will try & dig it up...ok, found it on my desktop... but don't know whether if I cut & paste the whole thing here I'll be breaching copywrite?
 
Well over a metre of water through my lower storey, the floor level was built 500mm higher than the 1in 100 year flood level. I do live on Norman Creek, however, my block didn't go under in 74 but rather than being rain based and water trying to escape down the creek ours was earily still water rising slowly. Nothing a water blaster and a paintbrush can't fix at my place and my pontoons survived too unlike so many others.
 
total media beat up brisbane is...............the river will be down in a few days........................tv stations are vying for ratings.....im sick to death of ch 9 stating such false info about many areas being so bad............for sure there are some that are doing it tough but generally most of brisbane is high and dry

back to normal in two weeks people.............

wow....

i have two eyes..... i can watch the footage silently and still see water lapping the tops peoples homes, i can see street signs bearly visable, i can see cars raging down the street in a torrent of water...

what an absolutely ridiculous thing to say. Perhaps Brisbane CBD isnt as affected as some other towns, but i that does not negate the fact that this will take months/years to clean up not two blood weeks!
 
total media beat up brisbane is...............the river will be down in a few days........................tv stations are vying for ratings.....im sick to death of ch 9 stating such false info about many areas being so bad............for sure there are some that are doing it tough but generally most of brisbane is high and dry

back to normal in two weeks people.............
I hope your are not serious,i'm just doing the take-offs in costing to bring both properties back,and that if they have stayed on the stumps,and the chains that i sunk into the footings in one metre on of heavy cement have held:rolleyes:, then it will be a total strip out,elec's plumbing new hws everything and i just hope that all the raw water did not come back through the water system,and blow the enternal,the old 65 year old man behind one of the rentals has just finished a complete 75k plus reno,was going on the market in a few weeks,and he had just signed a cash contract on a place up Bundy was and that is also under water,as is his palce at Rocklea it's above his roof line as we speak,just think how a 65 years old man is going to start agian
after getting a kick in the balls like that,and you don't have to look to far too find a lot of investors with bigger problems that i now face over the next 5 weeks..
 
Willair...ol mate it all comes back to doing due diligence when buying...people become complacent about flooding, insurance and concentrate on cheap deals but theres often a hidden reason why and they dont realize until it bites them hard.

For sure its a shame that people are caught out in flood situations BUT if people choose to buy on flood plains or flood prone areas they that is their call...they cant expect insurance companies etc to bail them out cause many will not insure them anyway.

I dont envy anyone who has to tidy up their homes after flooding but at the end of the day most of us in Qld are hardly in the situation that the Lockyer valley went though,

Slow rising water is way different to rushing water..........I know what i would sooner go through any day
 
Willair...ol mate it all comes back to doing due diligence when buying...people become complacent about flooding, insurance and concentrate on cheap deals but theres often a hidden reason why and they dont realize until it bites them hard.

For sure its a shame that people are caught out in flood situations BUT if people choose to buy on flood plains or flood prone areas they that is their call...they cant expect insurance companies etc to bail them out cause many will not insure them anyway.

I dont envy anyone who has to tidy up their homes after flooding but at the end of the day most of us in Qld are hardly in the situation that the Lockyer valley went though,

Slow rising water is way different to rushing water..........I know what i would sooner go through any day


I don't think anyone will disagree with the quoted post, but this has nothing to do with the 'media beatup' you commented on earlier.. I've seen the rooftops poking out of the water, it's real...
 
Although the TV coverage contradicts itself on some points (on the same station) and within 10 minutes, and I have seen some footage 100 times :D, it has given me a better view point than if I had been on the ground up there - especially without hiring a helicopter. Some interviews with people have been desperately scraping the bottom of the bucket (utterly boring), others have been very interesting, informative and heart wrenching.

But I have seen Julia Gillard speak too often (although not that often). She is as boring as watching paint flake off a wall! Someone needs to tell her that she is not speaking in a high school debating team when she is speaking to the nation, she needs to come across as if she is speaking from the heart and speak in a more normal voice - not drawing her words out as if speaking to half wits!

Anna Bligh on the other hand, who I previously thought dressed like an office worker, comes across completely different. She speaks in a normal manner, genuinely seems to care and speak from the heart and has a her finger on the pulse. Is she Queensland's mother? ;)

The real test will be two years down the track, but I think I would prefer Prime Minister Bligh to Gillard. (I am not a Queenslander so don't have any previous opinion or knowledge on Anna Bligh, just observation from flood coverage)
 
But I have seen Julia Gillard speak too often (although not that often). She is as boring as watching paint flake off a wall! Someone needs to tell her that she is not speaking in a high school debating team when she is speaking to the nation, she needs to come across as if she is speaking from the heart and speak in a more normal voice - not drawing her words out as if speaking to half wits!

Absolutely!!! I have resorted to hitting the "mute" button, especially when it is a repeat of something I have already heard. I loved the part where she was talking about helicopters and swirled her head around in a circle.
 
total media beat up brisbane is...............the river will be down in a few days........................tv stations are vying for ratings.....im sick to death of ch 9 stating such false info about many areas being so bad............for sure there are some that are doing it tough but generally most of brisbane is high and dry

back to normal in two weeks people.............

It would appear you are in Brisbane and have a finger on the pulse of the situation, from a quote "please explain" media beatup?

Many areas are bad, and people are hurting you see it on thier faces and in thier eyes, just consider not all are property owners that have lost everything is it thier ffault as well. Two weeks not a snow balls chance in hell, will not even close by then.

And when you get past all the cleaning you have to deal with your insurance comp with some saying this is a riverine flood and many / most will not covered. Like most people if you have flood insurance you will feel you are covered but alas riverine flood is different kettle of fish.

I guess buy your thinking buying in Cairns, Townsville and down the coast serves you right, if you get hit by a cyclone, you should have done DD. Maybe I should have done more DD when I purchased my place in The Gap before for storm activity.

I'm sure you put this comment out to get a hit and YEP I fell for it, time to move on.

Brian
 
Well over a metre of water through my lower storey, the floor level was built 500mm higher than the 1in 100 year flood level.
So sorry to hear that, RPI. Yes, many have done their DD, and been flooded nonetheless. :(

I'm fed up with people saying "oh, people will live on a flood plain..." :rolleyes: As well as being insensitive, it's just ignorant. We do live near a creek, which is why we did extensive due diligence prior to purchase. Our home either didn't flood, or had an inch of water in it (depending which neighbour you ask) in 1974. Post-Wivenhoe, it's above the 100-year flood level. We were able to insure against flood. All those things told us it wasn't an unreasonable expectation to have many years of flood-free living, or to be not too badly affected by flooding.

We had a freak flood in May 09 due to a shipping container jamming under the bridge around the corner, preventing rainfall draining away after a heavy storm. That was deemed "stormwater" and the 5 homes which were flooded in my street were all covered for the damage. The water got up to 800mm deep, but was all gone within an hour. We were out of the house for 6 months, and it cost Suncorp $250K (our house alone).

I don't think, given what we knew above, to assume that this was a freak event, unlikely to be repeated. Yet this time we went under to about 1.7m.

And there are many, many houses which went under which, on the surface of it, are far less likely to flood than our home. Plenty went under which weren't on the flood flag maps (very detailed maps produced by authorities which show which houses will flood at various depths). Even as late as Tuesday afternoon, our house was right on the edge of the flood flag map for Wednesday, ie might get wet in worst case scenario, might not get wet (the block itself is quite flat).

Yet we got 1.7m, and at one stage thought we may get much more.

So many, many houses were flooded, which according to all the information available, were exceedingly unlikely to ever flood.

Be a hard-*** and lack compassion if you want, but at least do it from a factual basis, not from a position of ignorance. :rolleyes:

My anger is not on my own behalf, because we knew we were at least at some risk, and thankfully had insurance, so I don't expect any sympathy. But I know many, many people who quite reasonably assumed that they were unlikely to ever have to deal with a flood, who've lost everything and don't have insurance. Anybody who doesn't have compassion for those people has some kind of problem.

I'd be interested to see a map of Australia, showing the areas which haven't ever flooded in recorded history, and how much of the population live in those areas. I imagine the proportion of the population in areas which have the potential for flooding is significant.
And when you get past all the cleaning you have to deal with your insurance comp with some saying this is a riverine flood and many / most will not covered. Like most people if you have flood insurance you will feel you are covered but alas riverine flood is different kettle of fish.
Brian, I know of the distinction between stormwater damage (damaged caused by water that falls from the sky in your immediate vicinity) and flood (water rising from a waterway), but I've not heard of this "riverine flood" issue. What else floods besides rivers? :confused:

Or by "flood insurance", are you talking about people who are protected against water damage from broken dishwashers etc? Or stormwater? If so, neither of those are "flood", in insurance parlance, just like our 800mm submersion wasn't a "flood", and most people are covered for that. "Flood insurance" means just that - you're covered against rising waterways. The only two companies I know of which cover flood in Queensland are Westpac and Suncorp.
 
I feel sorry for everyone, who are impacted by floods.:( Now rivers and water reservoirs in Victoria have started to flood and thousands of people had to be evacuated. Irony is the areas now impacted by flooding are more known to be bushfire risk areas than subject to flooding.

About the fllood insurance. This advise comes too late for many people, but maybe it helps some people in the future. Coles offers now home and contents insurance, which covers floods. Or actually according to a marketing brochure it is Wesfarmers insurance, who underwriters it but it is 'marketed' as Coles Insurance. Worthwhile to check it out for the future.
 
I'd be interested to see a map of Australia, showing the areas which haven't ever flooded in recorded history, and how much of the population live in those areas. I imagine the proportion of the population in areas which have the potential for flooding is significant.

.


The fact that Toowoomba flooded is amazing. It's sitting at the top of the range. The catchment would have been tiny. The water flooding down those streets would have fallen just a few ks away. What happened in Toowoomba could happen nearly anywhere then given that amazing amount of rain in such a short period.

I heard someone say a dam might have protected Toowoomba. Anyone proposing to build a dam on the top of the range with a tiny catchment would be declared as a nut case before this event.


See ya's.
 
Perp, so sorry to hear you got hit again, thoughts (and donations) are with all the people who have lost so much, including loved ones. We are copping floods here, who would have ever thunk it, the desert can flood! Towns been isolated, up to 80% of houses under water in some towns, no lives lost thank goodness and stock has been moved to higher ground where we can...it's only property mainly hit, and services...BUT just so sorry you guys got hit again and with such freakish force. In some parts here we have just had the best part of our average annual rainfall, it's been extreme. Unprecedented in people's lifetime here, and extreme. It has hit home to the districts here the severity of what the interstaters are going through...big hugs and thoughts with you all.
 
Anyone who thinks this will be over in a week or two is living in La-La land.

11,000 homes in Brisbane need major repairs. Billions will be needed to repair infrastructure such as roads, bridges, railways and Government buildings.

Hundreds of kilometers of rail have been washed away and need to be replaced before the mining industry and other industries reliant on rail transport can commence again, which will lead to considerable unemployment.

Even in 1974 when 6,000+ homes were affected it took more than 12 months before some homes were even able to start repairs due to worker and material shortages.

Every flood "behaves" differently, as Perp's experiences show. Although the river level was lower than in 1974, 40 years of development has altered contours and the effect on a particular property has sometimes been different this time around.

Sadly, time dims memories. Our experiences buying a home for our son last year prove this (he was in Melbourne). In his chosen suburbs of Chelmer/Graceville, it was staggering the amount of misinformation I was given by real estate agents, only one of whom took questions about flood levels with any degree of seriousness. We KNEW the flood levels because of our 1974 experiences, we used the questions to get a quick idea how "good" the agent was. He bought a house in Graceville well above flood level, in fact our research showed it was probably above 1893 levels.
Marg
 
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