City’s CBD to flood as levee damaged

MARYBOROUGH’S CBD was evacuated and expected to flood on Sunday night after gates under a new levee to protect the town were damaged, as the impact of the weekend’s unprecedented rainfall continued around Queensland.

Police were forced to evacuate the CBD in areas that were supposed to be protected by a new $6m levee built to reduce the impact of flood events up to a river gauge level of 11.4m.

“The gates underneath the recently installed levee have been damaged and, as a result, the CBD will now bear the full impact of the flood,” an online message from the Fraser Coast Regional Council said.

The damage bill to the town was unknown as the flood levels were expected to peak at 10.5m – just below the 10.7m reached in 2013 – with an evacuation centre set up for residents.

Crews were desperately pumping water out of the CBD late Sunday in an attempt to stop dozens of businesses being inundated.

Flooding in 2011, 2012 and 2013 had a combined damages bill of about $43m, with the 2013 event affecting 64 CBD businesses.

The flooding was in the aftermath of huge rainfalls of up to 670mm that hit Queensland communities on Friday and Saturday.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Pieter Claassen said only small amounts of rainfall was expected on the east coast and around the Wide Bay area this week.

He said heavier showers would be at most “10mm”, but most areas would see less than that amount.

“The good news is there isn’t any more significant rainfall expected in that region for the course of the next week,” he said.