A motorist escaped with facial injuries after a wet-weather crash on the Sunshine Coast shut down the Bruce Highway.
And overnight, heavy rain drenched parts of Brisbane.
Letisha Willocks reports.
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TRANSCRIPT
The crash involving a semi and several cars happened at the start of morning peak hour.
Emergency services closed all north-bound lanes, resulting in a massive traffic jam.
Peter Harvey, Queensland Fire Service: “When we arrived there was a semi-trailer across the highway, um, and we had four other vehicles involved.”
Witnesses say the truck jack-knifed trying to avoid an earlier incident.
Sean Cassidy, Witness: “Ah, just saw a Commodore go off into the ditch and then, yeah, another, just that blue ute swerved in front of me, then I hit him in the bum and
that was it.”He says he’s surprised no-one was seriously injured.
Emergency services are urging drivers to take care in the wet conditions.
Peter Harvey, Queensland Fire Service: “Especially in these conditions, ah I mean, they need to drop their speed by at least thirty per cent.”
Meanwhile, the heavy rain overnight caused flash flooding in the inner city and several suburbs, with up to 85 millimetres dumped on Brisbane in about an hour.
In low-lying areas around Rocklea, property owners could do little to stop the flooding.
Paul McGibbon, resident: “I heard the rain only went for about an hour last night so in that time it’s come completely up the street.”
Brad Gilmour, business owner: “The Stable Swamp Creek backed up and, ah, you can see where it came up to the edge of the concrete over here, we’re very close to flooding our shed here.”
Locals say they were lucky, with flood waters peaking lower than usual.
By mid morning there was nothing left to show from last night’s deluge, with flood waters receding as quickly as they came.
But forecasters say we should brace ourselves for more wet weather.
Pradeep Singh, Bureau of Meteorology: “We are in for a wet summer anyway, could be a wild one.”
The bureau’s predicting more rain over the weekend and into next week.
Letisha Willocks, QUT News.