Clean-up effort expected to continue until next week
The onslaught of rain has finally eased across south-east Queensland allowing communities to begin counting the huge financial and personal cost of the Christmas and new years' weather disasters. More than 8-thousand people are still without power and frustration is growing on Tamborine Mountain with residents there pleading for more support.
Transcript
00:00 A bird's eye view captures the extent of the carnage.
00:06 This home blown to pieces, caught in the eye of the storm.
00:13 Huge trees toppled on power lines and properties.
00:18 Nine days after the Christmas tornado tore through Mount Tambourine, the damage is still
00:23 being revealed and the cost counted.
00:28 Hours of relentless rain turned the town's streets into raging rapids.
00:33 Trees, debris, it was just everywhere and it literally was unrecognisable.
00:39 The skies have cleared and floodwaters are receding.
00:43 The worst of the weather is behind us.
00:46 This allows for the important restoration and rebuild work to commence.
00:51 Thousands of residents are still in the dark.
00:53 We've got no running water, no power, no internet.
00:58 We're not talking one or two power poles, we're talking hundreds and hundreds.
01:02 One thousand technicians are on the ground, working to repair and in some cases replace
01:08 the network.
01:09 It's a big task, a very big task.
01:11 The hope was to have all power restored by the 5th, which is this Friday.
01:15 It may now be Saturday or Sunday.
01:17 Despite the devastation, this community is determined to fight back.
01:23 For the people on the ground and all the neighbours that are helping each other, everyone's doing
01:26 their best.
01:27 50 Defence Force personnel will arrive in the South East tomorrow to assist with the
01:33 clean up.
01:34 Mount Tambourine will be a focus area.
01:37 In the aftermath, some exhausted residents here have felt neglected and say the help
01:44 has come too late.
01:46 You can imagine the need for just basics is really high, so more immediate funding would
01:50 have been great.
01:51 Across the South East, some dams have started spilling excess water.
01:56 There are some usual releases from Somerset Dam into Wyvern Ho at the moment, just to
02:02 balance out the capacity of those dams.
02:05 All hands on deck for a recovery effort that's only just beginning.
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