Residents of Hervey Bay in Queensland begin clean up

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Army has joined the clean-up in Queensland’s coastal community of Hervey Bay, which was hit by torrential rain and flooding from ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

Transcript

00:00The sun is finally shining here in Harvey Bay and it's a welcome sight for locals to

00:07see the clean-up effort ramping up.

00:10The army has arrived and is being deployed as part of special strike teams with the Rural

00:15Fire Service and the Queensland Fire Department.

00:18Around 1,600 properties were impacted by flooding and rain on Sunday from ex-tropical cyclone

00:24Alfred.

00:25Many people were caught off guard and had no time to prepare.

00:29We got no warning, so I was still up at 1.30 the night before and I checked the bomb and

00:37I checked the radar and yeah there was a bit of rain showing but nothing like what we got.

00:45There's been criticism from locals and the Fraser Coast Mayor over the lack of warning

00:50before the severe weather hit and suggestions the Bureau needs to review the messaging that

00:55was put out.

00:56Now there are boots on the ground, the priority is getting into homes and cleaning up streets

01:02in the worst affected areas.

01:04We've done about four high-rises yesterday and it takes a bit of time, there's lots of

01:07water in the basements so we've done a lot of pump-outs of those sort of things, washing

01:12out of houses I think we've probably got about 15 on the books so far and there's a lot more jobs coming.

01:18There is plenty of work to be done with underground car parks still filled with flood water, cars

01:24that have been inundated and homes that need cleaning out.

01:27So today is just the beginning of the clean-up effort in Harvey Bay.

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