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Glad my daughter is home safe and sound.
OH and myself were starting to worry about her safety, and we were watching the news every day and night, knowing that the flooding was moving south.
Toowoomba is an area of 116.5 square kilometres (45.0 sq mi)...so it gives you an idea of the ammount of flooding just in this one township alone.
Current News is telling us the area flooded is larger than the state of Texas ( USA )
Queensland is a large state,( Tropical ) and are used to Cyclone weather this time of the year, but i dont think even they were prepared for the size of this disaster.
Thoughts for them all, but i feel there will be more deaths to come yet,sadly
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Hello Tony...not spoken to you in ages, so sorry its now because of such a sad situation.
Positive thoughts that the storms stops/calms down soon and no one else dies.
Take care
jude
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Tony - my daughter, OH and family are holidaying in Port Macquarie visiting friends. They are watching the weather very closely and are prepared to leave should things get worse in those areas.
S x
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Hi.
A terrible disaster for our Queensland neighbours and the families and small businesses who have lost all. My youngest daughter has just returned home to Victoria. She was holidaying with a girlfriend in the small town of Laidley, not to far from Toowoomba and told me many roads have been cut off on there way to Brisbane airport.
Many of us that live in the southern states also holiday up north in Queensland for the festive season, and the state relies so much on its tourism dollar during this time.
A total disaster financially, for many of the popular tourism towns as well.
They will recover, but the clean up will cost into the Billions.
A sad beginning to the new year.
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It's incredible Tony - it's like watching a disaster movie. Poor Toowoomba - they've been virtually wiped out. Latest news - at least 8 dead including children and 72 missing from surrounding areas:-(
S x
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I saw it on the news tonight as well Tony.
My thoughts and prayers are with the Families who have lost loved ones and to those homes have been distroyed.
Teresa
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Tony we have seen it on our news programmes. It was horrendous. I am so sorry for the people of Queensland. My thoughts are with them all and especially those who have lost their lives and their families.
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At least eight people have died in the latest wave of flooding in Queensland - described as an "inland tsunami" - and dozens more are missing.
Others are stranded on rooftops waiting for rescues that could not start before first light today.
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh this morning said eight people had died in the Toowoomba area and another 11 were missing. She said wet weather was hampering the rescue efforts and the search for the 11 missing people.
A woman and a boy were found dead in the Toowoomba CBD and a man and a boy were killed at nearby Murphys Creek after a massive body of water from weeks of heavy rain tore through Toowoomba, 125km west of Brisbane, on Monday afternoon.
Ms Bligh said the situation in the Toowoomba and Lockyer Valley areas was very serious.
Storm coming
More heavy rainfall and possible severe storms were expected in Toowoomba today.
Helicopters that were sent into the Lockyer Valley to search for stranded residents were being held back by very heavy rain this morning.
"Right now we have every possible available resource deployed into this region to search for those people that we know are missing," Ms Bligh said.
"This is going to be I think a very grim day, particularly for the people in that region, and a desperate hour here in Queensland."
'Like a cyclone had gone through'
Nine Network reporter Cameron Price is at Grantham and told the ABC the town had been devastated.
"The town is like a cyclone has gone through it," he said. "There are houses that are completely collapsed, cars that are halfway up trees, homes a kilometre away from where they were.
"The terrible news from here is that they took the bodies of two small children from the waters, they are the fifth and sixth victims here so far."
Toowoomba was unprepared for this event. The city of about 121,000 people sits about 700 metres above sea level, on the crest of the Great Dividing Range.
Until last year it was gripped by a decade-long drought and was forced in 2009, when dam levels dropped to an all-time low of 7.7 per cent, to pump water from the Great Artesian Basin.
Washed away in cars
Six people are confirmed missing in the Lockyer Valley - three young pedestrians and another three people who were washed away in two cars.
Another 30 people have sought refuge at a primary school in Grantham, also in the valley, but authorities say contact with them is virtually non-existent.
Toowoomba Mayor Peter Taylor said there had been "unbelievable damage’’ to the city.
‘‘It’s a real disaster scene where I’m standing at the moment in Russell St, Toowoomba. There’s furniture and furnishings and it’s just blown shops away.
‘‘We have a railway line about 60 or 70 metres suspended in mid air and two cars that are virtually unrecognisable that have floated and smashed into the rail.’’
The flood will move through the valley this morning and will head further east into the Brisbane River and into Ipswich and Brisbane within 36 hours.
The Bureau of Meteorology modelling on how that will affect Brisbane was due to be completed before sunrise.
The flood peaks are dropping as quickly as they came, but they're leaving a trail of destruction.
House swept away
At least one house was swept away and another was shifted on its foundations at Murphys Creek in the valley.
Queensland Fire and Rescue Service commissioner Lee Johnson urged motorists to take care when confronted with flooded roads.
“It only takes 15 centimetres of fast flowing water to sweep a person off their feet and into a flooded waterway. It only takes 60 centimetres of floodwater to push a four-wheel-drive," he said.
“People underestimate the danger of these waters and tragically eleven lives have been lost since November 2010 as a result.
“Every swift water rescue performed by fire personnel puts not only the victim's life but the lives of emergency services personnel who are forced to enter treacherous waterways at risk.”
Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman yesterday warned the city to prepare for widespread flooding, but added the difference between the current situation and 1974 was the presence of the Wivenhoe Dam.
"Wivenhoe Dam is protecting Brisbane right now and in the coming days from a flood right up there with 1974," Mr Newman said.
He said that in the 1974 flood water was flowing past the Brisbane River's main measuring point at the rate of 9500 cubic metres a second.
Water was flowing into some of the catchments yesterday at the rate of 9000 cu m/sec.
Premier Anna Bligh said the dam, built after floodwaters devastated thousands of Brisbane and Ipswich homes, was seeing "massive inflows" to rival the 1974 disaster.
"We are seeing one million megalitres or two Sydney harbours flow into the Wivenhoe catchment every day," she said.
"Without a doubt, the Wivenhoe Dam has already saved Brisbane from a catastrophic flood in the next 48 hours, but we have to keep releasing water from it so it can keep doing the job it's doing.
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