Flooding conditions have disrupted Brisbane’s river transport system following the suspension of all City Cat and City Ferry services for today and tomorrow morning.

This follows earlier warnings from the City Council that residents should be prepared for minor flooding as controlled releases from Wivenhoe Dam coincided with an afternoon high tide.

Carly Synnott reports.

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TRANSCRIPT

Brisbane City Council issued a warning early this morning that up to twenty inner city streets and a car park were at risk of flooding.

They were concerned this afternoon’s king tide meeting with the overflow flow from Wivenhoe dam would inundate flood prone areas.

Council workers manned low lying streets. At this car park in Windsor they turned away commuters for most of the day.

Cathy Prout, Windsor Resident: “Not annoyed, I mean I was sort of prepared that that was gonna happen. I’d rather know now.”

Chris Chandler, Brisbane City Council worker: “A couple of people got a bit frustrated but you gotta deal with it. That’s all part of the job.”

The Brisbane City Council is taking no chances. Four sand bag collection zones have been set up round the city. This one at Morningside has given away over 2,000 sandbags since last week.

Residents have heeded the warning. Cars loading up every five minutes at this depot in Newmarket.

Doug Dobbin, Lutwyche Resident: “With the ground so saturated at the moment any extra rain is going to lift the creek and it inundates the house unfortunately.”

At high tide late this afternoon, that car park in Windsor was high and dry.

James Twiford, Newstead Resident: “Better be safe than sorry. You’d rather do the preparation than neglect it and worry about it later.”

Shay Green, Albion Resident: “I would be very upset if we didn’t do anything and we could’ve done something.”

Lord Mayor Campbell says Brisbane has been lucky so far. If it wasn’t for a low tide Monday morning, hundreds, if not thousands of homes could’ve been flooded.

Campbell Newman, Brisbane Lord Mayor: “We dodged a bullet the residents involved dodged a bullet.”

But more rain is on the way.

Carly Synnott, QUT News.