Cleanup effort expected to continue until next week
Queensland fire and emergency services say the clean-up from storms that have battered the state's south-east since Christmas day will continue until next week. 300 staff and volunteers including some crews from Victoria are on the ground supporting locals in the Scenic Rim and Gold Coast.
Transcript
00:00 The conditions have certainly eased for now, not only here in Brisbane but also on the
00:06 Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast.
00:09 But look, some of the areas are heavily affected.
00:12 There is still a lot of debris that needs to be cleaned up.
00:15 And that's why the Australian Defence Force is being implemented.
00:19 There are around 50 members of the Australian Defence Force that are going to be on the
00:24 ground later this week and they're helping with that clean-up effort, cleaning up debris.
00:29 There's also extra help coming from emergency services from New South Wales who will be
00:35 on the ground.
00:36 They're actually on the ground as we speak, also helping with this massive clean-up, particularly
00:43 around that scenic rim area.
00:45 And one of the hardest-hit areas was the Tamborine Mountains, that area.
00:51 And that was heavily affected.
00:53 To give you an indication of that, there's about 8,300 customers affected by power outages
01:00 as of just recently, and around 3,600 of those customers are at the Tamborine Mountains.
01:07 So there's a lot of trees down in that area, there's concerns about the quality of the
01:11 roads in that area, and also landslips could be a bit of an issue as well.
01:18 So that's one of the real hardest-hit areas from this weather event.
01:23 But we did hear a little bit earlier on this morning from Stephen Smith.
01:27 He's the Acting Commissioner at the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services.
01:31 And he says despite all the warnings, people are still getting caught out in floodwaters.
01:38 We've had another five swift water rescues from our Fire and Rescue Service trained personnel
01:43 and unfortunately we continue to see people getting involved in those sort of incidents.
01:51 So we're urging people to not drive, walk, ride into or play in moving water, or water
01:58 at all, floodwater at all.
01:59 A lot of houses have been badly damaged in this weather event, but there's also a number
02:05 of small businesses that are affected by this throughout South East Queensland.
02:10 And there is going to be loans available, up to $250,000 available for those small businesses
02:18 that have been affected by recent weather events.
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