Statement on current weather event and flooding
Published 16 February 2024
Attributed to City of Moreton Bay Mayor Peter Flannery
City of Moreton Bay has experienced heavy to locally intense rainfall and dangerous flooding again overnight, as the City continues to still deliver crucial recovery services following the severe weather event and flooding disaster of late January.
The most up to date information can be found at Disaster Dashboard disaster.moretonbay.qld.gov.au Dashboard (moretonbay.qld.gov.au).
Severe thunderstorms have temporarily eased, however the redevelopment of severe storms remains possible. The situation is being closely monitored, and further detailed warnings will be issued as necessary.
The storm last night was an exceptionally heavy rainfall event that was not forecast. The forecast received from the Bureau of Meteorology yesterday showed a 10% chance of less than 40mm rainfall across our city, however in some locations we received up to 154mm.
Council has a well-tested and successful approach to minimise the city’s risk for severe weather. Our Disaster Management team operates with triggers significantly lower than counterpart local councils after the important lessons learnt during flood events in the early 2010s.
Council provides a free 24/7 flood warning service to subscribers of MoretonAlert; this was again in action in the early hours of this morning. This morning however was an exceptional circumstance, which meant we also issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Heavy Rainfall due to public safety considerations following registered water over roads and disruptions across the City.
City of Moreton Bay Disaster Management teams and Council staff have been active since 3am this morning managing this flooding impact and closing impacted roads. As of 10.45am today there are 53 roads closed due to flooding or causes related to flooding such as obstruction.
The SES team, embedded in City of Moreton Bay disaster management team, is supporting impacted residents with 2 requests for assistance now received.
Six sandbag stations were opened before 10am including at Petrie, Dayboro, Arana Hills, Margate, Oakey Flat Road and Deception Bay.
Safety of residents continues to be our prime concern. We encourage people to stay home - if it’s flooded forget it.
If people need to leave their home or workplace due to flooding, we advise going to family and friends first. However, all City of Moreton Bay libraries have been open since 8.30am as places of refuge.
Again, we ask the community to be careful on the roads and monitor weather conditions closely in their area, as the risks of isolated heavy rainfall will persist for at least the next 24 hours. There may still be significant impacts.
For up-to-date information, monitor the Disaster Dashboard disaster.moretonbay.qld.gov.au Dashboard (moretonbay.qld.gov.au)
This is a timely reminder to all residents of the importance of having an emergency plan. This means that they are ready to respond to natural hazards that impact them, like flooding or bushfire. It is only through having a personalised emergency plan that residents can ably respond to emergency and severe weather events at short notice as even with the best forecasting in the world, there is always a risk of surprises.
Residents should go to https://www.getready.qld.gov.au/get-prepared and complete a Household Extreme Weather Emergency Plan to get ready.