Brisbane Floods

With the flood water going down, the clean up is starting. Many Brisbane apartment buildings were impacted by the floods -- basement carparks full of water and mud; no electricity; residents evacuated.

Some of the buildings that have significant water in their basements include:

• Admiralty Towers
• Admiralty Two
• Admiralty Quays "we only had minor flooding in the lower level of the basement (about 50cm deep)"
• Riverplace
• Riparian (access tunnel to carparks - carparks are above ground level)
• Felix
• 212 Margaret
• Festival Towers
• River City
• Vue at Milton
• Water's Edge
• Flow
• SL8
• Parklands Sherwood
• Fresh Toowong
• Encore Toowong
• Arbour on Grey at South Bank
• Tennyson Reach
• Most apartments on the river at St Lucia
• the list goes on

Pradella writes about Parklands at Sherwood: "Sadly this site has experienced quite a lot of damage. The Outlook – which are the entertainment facilities has been completely submerged by water. The car park under Jacaranda and Brookline is also completely submerged. Whilst floodwaters did not reach the interior of the apartment buildings, it did however breach a number of houses and townhouses. The entire complex was evacuated late on Wednesday afternoon. Power has been cut and access to the property restricted."

and about Waters Edge:

"There has been significant damage to the pool and the grounds however the water from the river has NOT entered the building. The car park under the building has flooded, and all residents evacuated. Power has been cut."

Admiralty Towers has it status (current evacuated) on its website.

I am amazed that the Council allows buildings to be built with basements that flood, forcing loss of power and residents to be evacuated. See also this article.

I am not sure how the floods will impact property prices in Queensland. After the 1974 floods, the prices of impacted houses decreased for a period. There will be a shortage of rental accommodation, as many people are looking for places to live. Foreign press is reporting on its nationals being evacuated -- see for example, this article from Singapore and Malaysia -- and QUT and UQ were flooded, which will not be good news for those trying to attract foreign students to Brisbane.

On the positive side, it could have been much worse. Only one person died in Brisbane, and the flood levels were lower than initially expected.