For the second time in two years, Madeleine Higgs and her family have lost everything.
“It’s heartbreaking. It’s devastating,” she told AAP.
Ms Higgs and her husband retired a month ago and were looking forward to heading away on a cruise.
About 3am on Jan. 30, Ms. Higgs checked the driveway of her Bray Park home north of Brisbane as she couldn’t sleep with heavy rainfall lashing the roof.
Water was lapping nearly a metre high in her high-set home’s garden 45 minutes later.
“We walked out onto the driveway as the lights were out and the water was already armpit level high,” Ms. Higgs said.
The granny flat the pair had been building underneath the home to enjoy their retirement in was inundated with water - everything was destroyed.
“We couldn’t do anything,” she said.
On the same street, Kyle Blair said his wife woke with a fright to discover the first floor of their home had been inundated by floodwaters.
“I was at work but the missus woke up at 3am and found stuff floating in water beside her,” Mr. Blair said.
“She rolled out of bed straight into water. It was a bit of a scare.
“She had slept through the rain. When she woke up it was waist-deep water all through the bottom level of the house.”
Ms. Higgs said water levels almost doubled the 2022 floods which devastated the Moreton Bay region.
“It would have been horrific to wake up and see that inside your house,” Moreton Bay Mayor Peter Flannery said.
He said the Bray Park floods were a “one-in-200-year event” after more than 200mm of rain fell in just a few hours.
The region was one of the worst hit when heavy rain and thunderstorms lashed southeast Queensland on Jan. 30, causing widespread flooding.
Ms. Higgs said they had not received any flooding alerts before disaster struck.
“I’m angry that there was no warning that flow might happen because we could have saved some of the special stuff,” she said.
“I had a lot of my mum’s stuff and she’s passed away.”
The clean up has now begun for Ms. Higgs and her devastated neighbours, with nearly 400 Bray Park homes believed to be impacted.
“We might be able to salvage a bit but not much as everything is just coated in mud,” she said.
Mr. Blair said they had ripped everything out on their ground floor.
“Anything of value is gone. Our three cars are cactus,” he said.
“The wife is just going through some old photos she found floating around, trying to salvage them.”
Disaster hardship payments are now available for flood affected Bray Park residents, with more suburbs expected to be added after further damage assessments.
