An Australian man and his dog from the Gold Coast have been swept to their deaths as Queensland’s flooding crisis moves south.
The man, aged in his 50s, and his dog died when their car was swept away in torrential rain on Currumbin Creek Road about 3 a.m. on Monday.
The vehicle had been driven 30 to 40 metres into floodwaters and couldn’t be located by emergency services.
Surf lifesavers discovered the submerged vehicle just after 10.45 a.m. about 10 metres from the roadway.
The man and his dog were still in the vehicle.
It is the eighth fatality in southeast Queensland’s floods.
It was a nervous night for the owners of the landmark Yatala Pie Shop, which sits a stone’s throw from the swollen Albert River.
After the store was flooded in 2017, this time David Porter and his staff weren’t taking any chances.
The pies were loaded into a refrigerated truck and parked at higher ground, the drinks fridge was emptied and the machinery plastic wrapped.
And the water rose.
For hours, it inched across the car park coming closer and closer to the restaurant, lapping at the steps of the verandah but, miraculously, it stopped.
“It was like slow motion,” said Porter.
“It went up really quick - like a metre and then it went really slowly–400mm, up two steps and then like over three hours it went up 100mm–the last 10mm took over an hour.
“We didn’t think it was going to stop, but it has stemmed - right on the top step of the verandahs.”
The pie shop is hoping to be open for business on Tuesday.
“We dodged a bullet,” Porter said.
Meanwhile, flood-hit Logan City Council is bracing itself, with the Albert River at Beenleigh peaking at 7.3m and the Logan River still threatening.
Logan Mayor Darren Power said the Logan River was set to exceed the landmark 2017 flood level of 20.50m when ex-tropical cyclone Debbie hit.
Locals were sandbagging their homes on Monday with about 1000 properties already affected, prompting the council to open a 24-7 evacuation centre at Crestmead.
Refuges were also available at Cornubia and Jimboomba but only during business hours due to power outages.
“The Logan River is set to peak 300mm above what happened in 2017,” Power told AAP.
“We’ve got it peaking at about 9 am Tuesday morning on our latest figures but if it rains between now and then we will have to recalculate.”
The river is expected to remain above the major flood level of 16m for days.
The Gold Coast is also battening down, with flooding expected to exceed record 2017 levels.
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate warned flooding would affect properties until “at least” noon on Tuesday, prompting the opening of 24-7 evacuation centres at Burleigh and Ormeau.
He said beaches will remain closed on Tuesday with a sandbag station set up at Pimpama.
Underground car parks are underwater due to flash flooding that swamped a major Queensland highway and has closed almost 100 local roads.
Gold Coast City Council issued emergency alerts for Currumbin Valley and Tallebudgera Valley with flooding expected to continue to rise despite the tail end of a low-pressure system moving south.
“Apart from the northern rivers, we are also working...to assist people in the Currumbin and Tallebudgera valley catchments,” Tate said.
The system remains centred offshore from the Gold Coast as it impacts the city’s southern end and northern NSW.
It is expected to bring intense rainfall with six-hour rainfall totals between 60mm and 120mm predicted.
