A distraught resident takes in the damage to his home in Bundaberg. Pic: Getty Images Source: Getty Images
BILLIONS of dollars worth of repairs completed on Queensland's damaged public infrastructure after the 2010-11 floods will have to be redone.
The massive scale of this week's flood crisis is only now beginning to emerge.
Not only have thousands of homes been inundated, almost 5000km of roads damaged, and entire farms literally washed away, but the death toll is now at six, with the discovery yesterday of the bodies of two men near Laidley.
And as the muddy waters began to recede across large parts of the state yesterday, the flood crisis was not over.
In Rockhampton, nervous residents are waiting on a flood now set to hit tomorrow afternoon. In Condamine, supplies were being stockpiled last night in anticipation of a flood likely to cut off the town for a week.
Other communities still face being cut off for weeks or even months, and will have to rely on helicopters for resupplies.
Premier Campbell Newman yesterday said that while the damage bill from the state's latest clash with Mother Nature was not yet known, he vowed that no time would be wasted in starting work to rebuild.
This house floated from North Bundaberg and ended up in Queen St. Pic Mark Calleja
"This is going to be a long, drawn-out process but the Government will deliver," Mr Newman said.
The Premier vowed to "do my darnedest" to ensure the construction of flood mitigation dams and levees to protect flood-prone towns and cities.
And he called on local governments to ensure that town-planning policies were more conscious of the flood risk.
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"We are going to go back and do it and maybe there will be ways to actually do it in a better way this time," Mr Newman said.
He also announced a flood appeal committee to oversee the distribution of disaster relief funds.
The sun rises over flooded streets in Bundaberg. Pic: Getty Images
Local Government Minister David Crisafulli said it was clear another monumental task now faced affected communities, their councils, and the State Government.
"It is going to take a mountain of effort," Mr Crisafulli said.
The army was yesterday trucking in food and water to the flooded communities of Oakwood, Gayndah and Mundubbera.
Some farmers expect to be without an income for at least six months, while consumers face shortages of basic foods such as tomatoes, potatoes and leaf crops as the hardest hit areas were the high-producing foodbowls of Boonah, Kalbar, the Lockyer Valley, Mundubbera, Gayndah and Bundaberg.
Already 25,000 insurance claims have been lodged, and the state faces its second multibillion-dollar repair bill in just two years.
Some of the infrastructure damaged has only just been repaired after the floods of 2010-11.
Thousands of people across Queensland are spending the night in evacuation centres because of flooding.
In the southeast, 40,000 homes and businesses were still without power last night and there was still a threat some Brisbane suburbs might run dry as the city's main water treatment plants at Mt Crosby continued to struggle to filter the muddy floodwaters.
In hardest-hit North Bundaberg, the record flood rapidly receded yesterday - exposing cars, boats and fridges lodged high up trees and roads washed away.
On one street, three buildings appear to have vanished. More than 200 soldiers arrived last night to begin the clean-up.
They will spend today making urgent repairs to roads and bridges, clearing stormwater drains and helping restart sewage treatment plants, and will stay as long as required.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard will tour Bundaberg today.
About 1500 homes are believed to have been flooded in North Bundaberg.
It was a humid, hazy, morning on the Gold Coast with wild seas whipping up the foam and causing more erosion.
Hundreds are expected to remain uninhabitable.
There are still estimated to be 7500 displaced Bundaberg residents.
Lyn Baker was among the first North Bundaberg residents who were able to return to their homes yesterday.
Water was dripping out of the wedding photos as she looked up with tired eyes and shrugged: "We just didn't think it would get us here."
Her lowset home in North Bundaberg was at least 1km from the Burnett River, and had been high and dry in the flood that caused chaos in the sugar city only two years ago.
But when the 64-year-old and her husband of six years, Phil, 60, returned yesterday it was evidence the unprecedented 9.5m flood had definitely got them.
The town of Bundaberg hit by floods. Pic Mark Calleja
Every time Lyn picked up something from a cupboard, it dripped with water and mud.
The photos were the most precious, left behind as they fled their home as evacuation orders were issued.
The couple had already pulled up all the carpet and friends were helping sweep out the "dirty, disgusting mud" from the home.
One of the friends, Bruce Potter, had helped all day on Sunday night ferrying people who were stranded in their homes in North Bundaberg.
His dinghy has a 75 horsepower engine but at times it couldn't compete against the flood.
"There was that much water running across the roads it was like rapids," he said.
Watch the Brisbane River rise due to the ongoing flooding problems around the state.
"I couldn't get the boat up, because you're going up the rapids and the boat's sucked down. "No wonder there's a house sitting in the middle of Queen Street."
Sure enough, in the middle of one of the main roads leading to the Burnett Bridge and to the main part of town is a house that has been swept off its stumps.
The old weatherboard house is crumpled, but largely intact and has come to rest up against street lights. It is understood to be one of three buildings missing from Hinkler Ave, about 200m away.
The Courier-Mail was flown into North Bundaberg on an army Black Hawk, making it the first media team on the ground in North Bundaberg, which is still cut off from the main part of town.
A large washout on the north side of the other bridge into town, the Don Tallon Bridge, is expected to keep it closed for at least a few days. At the airport before going up in the air to survey his city, Mayor Mal Forman, said there were about 1500 houses on the northside that were flood affected.
"I'm very proud of our people," he said. "They are showing so much fortitude, so much community spirit, I know for a fact that out of adversity will come strength."
Leisa Scott, Kelmeny Fraser, and Kathleen Donaghey
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