South-east Queensland has again been hit by severe thunderstorms and flash floods this morning, as the prime minister announced millions in disaster relief following last week’s catastrophic storms.
The Bureau of Meteorology issued warnings for parts of Ipswich, Logan, and the Scenic Rim early this morning.
Among the worst hit was Springfield Lakes, south of Brisbane, where a month’s worth of rain (131mm) fell in just three hours to 7am.
Queensland’s State Emergency Service attended 17 call-outs in Logan, nine in Ipswich and five on the Gold Coast.
The intense rainfall has since eased but a severe thunderstorm warning remains in place for Brisbane and Gold Coast surrounds.
The thunderstorm risk is expected to ease tomorrow, before a monsoon begins to develop over the far north-west of the state by the weekend.
Premier Steven Miles held at a joint press conference with Anthony Albanese at the Gold Coast disaster management centre this morning, as the prime minister tours flood-hit Queensland today and tomorrow.
Miles said that power had been fully restored to all homes by Sunday.
More than 130,000 properties were left without power during last week’s storms.
He said that the true scale of the devastation from those storms was only now becoming clear.
“It’s the lightning strikes that tell the story of these storms,” he said.
“Over a similar period last year, we had 38,000 lightning strikes. This year, we had 3.5 million.”
The slew of lightning strikes downed nearly 1,000 power lines and destroyed around 150 power poles.
It took 80,000 work hours to restore connectivity.
The government has been inundated with the largest-ever number of applications for disaster relief grants.
It comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed an extra $20 million in funds would go to south-east Queensland, with relief grants for affected farmers, small businesses and not-for-profits.
Speaking from the Gold Coast, Albanese said affected farmers would be eligible for $75,000 grants and small businesses and not-for-profits for $50,000 grants to help them with clean-up and recovery.
“We know how tough it’s been for people here in south-east Queensland and we know that there’s more to do and we’re determined to do it in a cooperative way across the three levels of government,” he said.
(9 NEWS)
