 Hey guys. Yes mate. Say again. We're just waiting for them to arrive now. It shouldn't be too far away. I'll call the studio or give you a heads up as soon as they come up. We're just waiting out in the corridor watching for them to come, so it shouldn't be too far away. So we shall stand down for weather because this is going to happen any moment. We're waiting. Some of us is live. Yes I am Carl. We are actually in the briefing room at the moment. They've been in crisis talks. Julie Gillard is here. Also Premier Anna Bly, the heads of all the emergency rescue teams. They've been behind locked doors for around about an hour now. We are expecting this briefing to start any moment and that will be an update on the search and rescue effort and the relief that's been going on right throughout the morning. And that's just about to happen now Carl. Prime Minister's on the way guys. Here they are. Do you want me to introduce? Okay. Bye. Good morning. I welcome to Queensland the Prime Minister and Chief of Defence, Angus Houston. As our two of our largest cities, Ipswich and our capital city of Brisbane, prepare and begin to experience the worst natural disaster in our history. As our city prepares for that disaster, we are also managing a number of major incidents in other areas of Queensland. And I'd like to work through some of the issues that are unfolding in those towns and cities first and then go to the Brisbane and Ipswich area. Today because of the clearing of the rain, we will see a major search and rescue effort into the Lockyer Valley searching for those people who remain missing. Very sad news overnight with further missing person notifications made to the Queensland police and the number they are now searching for is over 90. We can confirm that at this stage we have no confirmations of further deaths but we do expect that our emergency search and rescue teams today may face a very difficult and emotional task as they search for and possibly find bodies in some of those isolated areas. Our thoughts are with those workers and they're particularly with those families who are continuing to hope and anxiously wait for news of their loved ones we hope that they have good news at the end of today. Although we do stress that it may take several days of major search and rescue efforts given the damage in some of these areas to properties and to local terrain. The coroner is moving to the Lockyer Valley today to assist with these efforts and we have eight specialist counselling teams including people particularly trained in counselling children and grief counsellors and they will be locating across the towns in that valley today. In other parts of regional Queensland we're continuing to see floodwaters rise. The town of Dolby still has 125 people in an evacuation centre although the water is now stable there. In Chinchilla we have a major flood incident occurring with waters continuing to rise and current advice is that Chinchilla is likely to experience a flood peak over and above what they experienced about 10 days ago. The town of Condamine was completely evacuated yesterday evening for the second time in 10 days and they are likely to be out of their home again for a period of time. The towns of Gundawindi and Texas are also facing rising waters. Gundawindi is expected to be within potentially half a metre of its levee banks that could see those levees collapse and we are keeping a very careful watch on Gundawindi. This is a town of some 5,000 people. The town of Texas, a relatively small town of about 600 people are also seeing waters rising and evacuations have started in Texas. The good news is that the water in Rockhampton is falling although very very slowly. Similarly the water in Gympie is falling but that water from Gympie is now making its way to Meribara and Meribara can expect to see its waters rise and reach a peak in tomorrow. In Bundaberg we are also seeing some minor rises and some new flooding occurring in Bundaberg. I give you all of that information so that you can appreciate the scale of this incident and appreciate that our emergency teams are working across a number of areas across an enormous part of Queensland. We also note that as we start to prepare here in the capital city that many of these towns are experiencing this event for the second time. I think we need to draw inspiration from their resilience and draw inspiration and courage from the experiences they've had and are continuing to face. If I can move now to Ipswich and Brisbane. In Ipswich at 7.30am this morning the water had risen to 18.9 metres. There is some slightly good news in Ipswich and that is that the expected peak has been revised down from 22 metres to 20.5. They experienced 20.7 in 1974. So we are in a 1974 flood situation in Ipswich. I stress that in making those 1974 comparisons both the City of Ipswich and the City of Brisbane are vastly different places than they were in 1974. We have significantly higher populations. We have more dense construction. We have people living in high-rise units where in 1974 nothing existed. So many more people are expected to be affected by this event even though the water levels may be relatively similar. So for example in Ipswich today at that level we expected to peak today at 20.5. We expect that that will inundate and affect 4,000 properties in Ipswich. 1,500 are currently affected by floodwaters. We have 10 evacuation centres operational in Ipswich and 1,200 people in those evacuation centres. Many more out of their homes and staying with friends and relatives. The towns, the nearby towns of Teguilawar and Esk are completely isolated. They're not necessarily experiencing floodwater but are completely isolated by cut roads and will be getting supplies into those towns as soon as possible. Here in Brisbane the water is currently at around 3.1 metres and it is rising. We expect it to rise relatively slowly this morning but much more quickly after lunch this afternoon. By this afternoon we expected to peak around 4.5 metres and rise to 5.5 metres tomorrow morning, Thursday morning. Sometime around 4am tomorrow morning we expect to see those waters peak around the 5.5 mark in 1974 it peaked at 5.45. So by 4am tomorrow morning we expect Brisbane to be experiencing flooding of 1974 proportions and slightly higher. We have an evacuation centre established at the RNA show grounds. There are currently 182 people registered to accommodate there overnight but of course we expect that number to swell significantly throughout the day. Those people who are unable to get to higher ground with friends or family can I please encourage you to make early registration and early arrangements with the evacuation centres. The first centre is the RNA show grounds. From 8am this morning the second centre was activated at the QE2 stadium on the south side of Brisbane. The LORD MAYOR advises me that he is also speaking now with major churches to see whether it's possible to utilise church halls and other church facilities in local neighbourhoods should that be necessary. We have very significant issues arising on the Brisbane river. Many of you will have seen the images of pontoons and boats attached to pontoons floating down the river. We have salvage operations occurring to ensure that we don't see further damage caused by those floating objects running into businesses and homes. We have a very significant operation being undertaken right now across the river from the Regatta Hotel where a large barge known as the Island and many people in Brisbane will know that boat. It is at risk of coming loose of its moorings and there are efforts in operation happening right now to secure that facility. Throughout today there will be a number of critical issues that will be managed by our emergency teams. Firstly, the port of Brisbane is now closed and will only be open for emergency supplies under Police and Harbour Authority's escort. Traffic management plans are being put into place as we see power cut off in some areas and I'll talk a little bit about power in a moment, but as we see power cut off we are likely to see some traffic lights out around the CBD and parts of Brisbane. A very significant traffic plan is being put into place and Police will be doing everything in their power to manage that today, but in a large capital city I think you can all imagine the sort of difficulties they will face. This is likely to be a very significant problem with roads cutting from localised flooding and traffic lights out. One of the biggest messages I send to the people in the City of Brisbane today and Ipswich is do not travel if you do not have to. It is a danger to the rest of the population to have people out travelling unnecessarily. What that will do is take Police and emergency resources off the front line where they are needed to protect and save lives. Please, this incident is not a tourist event. This is a deeply serious natural disaster. Stay in your homes, do not travel unless it is absolutely necessary. The second message is for those who haven't already done so, find a friend in high places. There are many parts of Brisbane that will not be affected. Brisbane is a very hilly city. Many of us have friends and family living on those hills. Please, if you are not going to be affected, reach out to a neighbour, reach out to a friend or a family member. We will ensure everything is being done to evacuate people to official evacuation centres, but this could last for several days and I can assure you that you would rather be, if possible, with family than in one of these centres. The water that we are preparing for is a worst-case scenario in Brisbane. We anticipate some 2100 streets will be affected, that 19,700 residences are likely to experience flooding across their entire property. We expect a further 3,500 commercial properties to similarly experience floodwater across the entire property. This is a very significant event. It will create enormous disruption and dislocation. We are already seeing the beginning of this flood. The Brisbane River has broken its banks at Yeronga, near the Corso. We are seeing flooding starting this morning in places like Milton, Tawong, Jindali, the Graceville area, and we are likely to see more and more as the day progresses. The fact that this is peaking tomorrow does not mean that we won't see very dangerous situations emerging right now. I think we've all woken up in Brisbane to a very surreal experience. The sky is blue. We are facing an almost perfect Queensland summer day. We can take no comfort from that blue sky. The water and the rain have already done their damage. They are in the catchment and they are on their way down our river system. So please do not take any comfort from the fact that we've got blue sky here this morning. Can I just conclude by acknowledging that everybody out there, no doubt, is experiencing this as a quite scary and frightening event. Can I say that I know in my bones that Queenslanders are up to this and that we can take it. And I know that because I know we have the best people on our front line. They are coming from all over Australia, from other states, SES, emergency workers, police from New Zealand, and from the Australian Defence Force. I know it because we have enormous resources that are now deployed here in the southeast and in other parts of Queensland, including a massive boost from the Defence Forces and the Prime Minister will outline that in more detail. I also know that we are very strong and that we have enormous community spirit. This event will test us as it is testing people in regional Queensland. They have prevailed and the people here in the southeast will equally prevail. Ladies and gentlemen, please keep updated throughout the day. This is a rapidly moving event. I thank everybody to date for the marvellous effort. We've got, I think, the hardest times are still ahead of us. If I can invite the Prime Minister to join me and to make some comments. Prime Minister, thank you for being in Queensland today. Thank you. Thank you very much to the Premier for that introduction and can I say to the Premier, it's been a genuine privilege to attend the State Disaster Management Committee meeting this morning and to hear directly what great work is being done by emergency service personnel right throughout Queensland. I'm here today with the Minister for Defence Stephen Smith with our Minister Joseph Ludwick who will concentrate on Queensland flood recovery. I'm joined by the Chief of the Defence Force, by my National Security Advisor and by the Head of Emergency Management Australia. And we have come to Queensland today to be in Brisbane to very visibly say that we are working with the people of Queensland shoulder to shoulder as they face this flood crisis. Throughout the days of this flood crisis, the Australian Defence Force has done great work to support the people of Queensland. They've been out there each day as floodwaters have threatened. As the crisis has changed in its dimensions, we have stepped up Australian Defence Force efforts and we are taking a further step up today. We are bringing to bear an additional seven helicopters. We have seen that there are 15 helicopters available throughout Queensland and one of the biggest sources of work for those helicopters will be the very difficult, very urgent and occasionally heartbreaking task of search and rescue in the Lockyer Valley. We are also ensuring that we have more C-130 aircraft available. These are the aircraft capable of carrying food and supplies in order to resupply parts of Queensland, townships in Queensland that have become isolated and need food and supplies brought in by air. We will continue to work with the people of Queensland through the Australian Defence Force. We have several hundred Australian Defence Force personnel on a notice ready to move and during the course of the day, more and more personnel will join the efforts in Brisbane to assist with tasks like sandbagging. I understand that across Queensland and particularly in Ipswich and Brisbane today, there would be many frightened people anxious about what is going to happen next. To those people, I would say that the Australian Defence Force will be there providing support to the magnificent emergency personnel in Queensland to be working with them to support Queenslanders through this crisis. And of course, we know that there are many Australians who are waiting very anxiously for news of loved ones who haven't been located since the wall of water hit to Wumba and moved through the Lockyer Valley. That's why such a priority is being put on making helicopters available for the search and rescue task. At the same time, we will be continuing to support the people of Queensland with emergency payments and of course at the appropriate time when flood waters enable people to go back to their homes with grants to assist with recovery and rebuilding for families, for small businesses and for primary producers. But my task today is to give some information to those who might be leaving their homes now who are evacuating now and who need emergency assistance. This is the first initial payment available with later payments down the track when people are in recovery mode. In South-East Queensland today, Centrelink officers are not staffed. Just like other major employers, the Commonwealth has enabled Centrelink staff, many of whom live in flood affected areas themselves in Brisbane and Ipswich to make appropriate arrangements for themselves and their family and to make sure that they are not moving through streets and causing the kind of traffic and issues that the Premier referred to. Therefore, the best way of people getting Centrelink assistance today is to ring 180-226 in order to access emergency payments and support. We will also be having people in recovery centres, for example, there are Centrelink staff in the recovery centre in Ipswich. A thousand Centrelink staff are focusing on Queensland flood efforts and making sure that they are getting appropriate information to the people of Queensland. The system is working well. We have made around 10,000 emergency payments. That's $17 million that has got into people's pockets as the first initial payment has helped people through and as I say, there are later payments when people are looking to replace household contents, going back to their small business or their farm, engaging in cleanup and rebuilding. I also want to alert people to the fact that there are income support arrangements. There will obviously be people who cannot go about their ordinary work, employees who can't reach work, small business operators whose businesses are flooded and cannot be operated, primary producers who cannot get their goods to market. As I announced on Monday, there are special income support payments available for people in those circumstances. And once again, they should access that 180-226 number. Premier, can I say to you and through you to the people of Queensland. Queensland has already faced some dark days and there are dark days still ahead. But Australia is standing with you, working with Queensland to help Queensland through this crisis. And we will be there shoulder to shoulder, not only for the days ahead, but for the many months of recovery and rebuilding to come. And Premier, through you, can I also say a very big thanks to all of the emergency services, personnel, to all of the volunteers, to all of the people in local communities, the local mayors, the local councillors who are doing such a good job to lead their communities during a very difficult period and difficult time. I've seen firsthand today at the committee meeting I've just attended, the professionalism and determination of the emergency services personnel of Queensland. It really is very heartwarming to see it and my thanks go to everyone who is making a contribution. In the Brisbane area, the areas that we've started to see the first flooding are in the Jindali reach of the river, in the Milton and Tawong areas and in the South Brisbane and Yeronga reach of the river. But this is rapidly changing. You can expect to see more and more suburbs join that list very quickly over the next couple of hours. And I'm sorry, I can't give you a similar list for Ipswich but I can say in Ipswich we already have 1500 homes, so very significant sections of Ipswich. We're still getting final reports in from them. Can I just say that people in Ipswich last night really saw the water come up quite dramatically and there's more to come and that is what people in Brisbane will experience over the next 24 to 48 hours. Certainly we've dealt with a couple of instances of stealing in the Ipswich and another area in Gatton and Locky Valleys. We're following up on those but please have responded to those. Excuse me. Sorry, I understand there was one incident where police powers were used last night to protect the safety of one individual. The current advice is that the water levels, once they peak at about 4am tomorrow morning could last at around that level at least until Saturday before they start going down. But there will be many people for whom it doesn't go down enough for them to either access their home or their street for more days after that. So as these waters rise reasonably quickly they will move on but it will take several days. That's why it's important not to be travelling around at the moment. If you decide to go off to the shops or to your workplace unnecessarily you may find yourself there for many days. The best place to be at the moment is at home. Now the commissioner earlier. We have successfully rescued eight people from rooftops in the Lowood area. I understand that that involves a couple of families so it was of a number of people of I think two or three roofs. So there was rapid rising water in Lowood last night around 3am. People got to safety on rooftops. Early hour rescues, early morning rescues have seen all of those people rescued safely. I might just give one update because I've had a number of inquiries and my office has been a number of people ringing in. I think the hearts of many Australians were very touched and concerned by images on Monday night of a family sitting on top of a white car and the car appeared to be sinking in the Toowoomba incident. I can advise that involved a mother and a father and a child. The mother and child have been located and are safe. The father is unfortunately one of those who are on the list. So for all of those people who have been particularly concerned about that family that was heart-rending images and a great feeling of helplessness I think for everybody who saw it. I'm very relieved that the mother and child are safe but as I said we are still searching for the father in that case. Look I will be staying in Brisbane for a period of time. Today I am intending to be briefed by our commander Luke Foster of the Queensland Operation Flood Assist for us. I will travel to Inogra in order to talk to him and meet directly with Defence Force personnel. Obviously I would like to get out and about to meeting the people of Queensland and talking to them as they deal with this flood situation in terms of where that is possible. Obviously we will be working with Queensland and taking the necessary advice to echo what the Premier is saying. Obviously none of us want to distract from emergency efforts that are underway now but I do want to be out speaking to people on the ground. I found in the visiting that I've done so far in Queensland that you always learn something from talking to people and their direct experience and then I can feed it back in to make sure that our government systems are responding directly to their needs. Can you commit to flood mitigation funding for Queensland and perhaps an expansion of the perhaps the Bureau of Meteorology who said yesterday they think you were not up to scratch to identify what happened. Can I just comment on that because I was at that press conference that is not what the Bureau of Meteorology said. What they said was that currently available technology is not capable of resolution to the degree that would enable an event like that to have been pinpointed. So I think it's very important to understand our Bureau of Meteorology has world class most cutting edge equipment but the technology available science is not quite at that stage yet. Science may well get there and protect us better in future but it's not there yet. Premier have you had the opportunity yet to sit back just for a moment and sort of cut yourself away from all the briefings that you get your electorate is going to be severely impacted here maybe even your home have you had a chance to sit back and feel the emotion of what your residents and friends are probably going to be feeling? Along with many other people in Queensland my family is not immune to these experiences. My mother's house is in one of the low lying streets of West End. My brother and my sons evacuated her yesterday she's now at my house and I'm very happy about that. So that's certainly a peace of mind for me and it's a reminder to me that there are thousands of other people going through exactly that experience. My constituents will be severely impacted. The suburbs of East Brisbane, Norman Park, South Brisbane will all be flooded. We also have parts of Brisbane that weren't completely different than they did in 1974. South Bank did not exist we will have major areas of the city flooding in ways that we will find hard to predict and experience. So I can say honestly to people I do know what it's like to be out there worrying about your own family this is a frightening time but if we all calm, if we all stick together, if we all reach out to each other then I am absolutely confident that together with our emergency personnel and the army that we will prevail in this event. There are reports that there is a health care centre out at Withcot and a couple of babies are there are they emergency service personnel any closer to rescuing those children? No certainly there is no flood activity in the Withcot area at the moment I think what you're referring to certainly that is the case the road system out in the Locky Valley is tenuous to say the least and we're doing everything we can to address all of the calls for assistance that we have. Are there any emergency rescue operations currently underway that you can detail like the people standing on the roofs in Lowwood is there anything that you can explain to us now? Certainly there are situations happening right now in the Ipswich and Brisbane areas I don't have particulars of those but I do know that we're responding to multiple calls for assistance as are all emergency service personnel. Premier you've told people to think about moving very early but there's always going to be people that simply won't until the water starts coming up in their homes what's your advice to them just leave everything behind and get yourself out and forget about all those possessions that you know? Without any doubt we need to put human life first and there is every possibility that people will have very little time if they don't make early preparation if you start to see water in your yard or your family and get to safety this water could rise very very quickly we will have additional flood boats out and about rescuing people and keeping people getting people to safety we have additional personnel arriving from other states today but we need to make sure that we're working with them we shouldn't be deliberately testing them we should be doing everything in our own power to protect ourselves and leaving our emergency people to deal with the absolute extreme cases yes I can confirm that Oxley's Wharf restaurant is very likely to sink some time today salvage efforts were being made yesterday but in the interests of safety those efforts have now stopped and it is nothing further can be done for that restaurant and it is likely it is however moored to the banks of the river with very strong steel cables what is happening is those cables are pulling the restaurant down into the river so it is very likely that we will see that restaurant sink into the river some time today or overnight but it is moored onto the river bank and my understanding it is likely to stay there so the restaurant will be lost but we don't expect to see it break but we'll be monitoring that very carefully in relation to the Wesley Hospital there is no expectation that the Wesley Hospital will experience flooding of course because it's on quite a high hill current work is being done just to ensure that the flooding is not likely to isolate that hospital obviously hospitals need to be places where we can get supplies and doctors in and out of and medical staff easily so there is some work being done at the moment just to guarantee that we can continue to get road links into the Wesley Hospital in every possible scenario it's not possible to entirely rule out some evacuation of critical patients but that would be an absolute last resort frankly because obviously that would have its own risks for those patients so that is unlikely but remote possibility certainly the options that are open to us are to allow the island to sink actually and that is not a bad option as long as it stays in place and obviously the maritime experts are looking at and that's exactly the same with the Oxley Wharf restaurant it is actually safer to have it in place sunk and to be able to repatriate it later Commissioner we're getting reports that Suncorp Stadium might be on fire after a transformer shorted out do you know anything about that? No I can't comment on that I have no knowledge yet So the one other issue I meant to raise which I think is important is I think everyone understands that electricity and water do not mix and Energex will systematically throughout this event be having to shut down power in some parts of the city they will only do that to protect your lives but it will cause inconvenience and it will make a difficult job of enduring this event more difficult and I understand that that is going to try people's patience but you will only have your power disconnected if it is imperative to save your life and to protect you and your property from what might otherwise be catastrophic electrical events so you will be advised by Energex Energex will be doing updates about areas of the city that will be cut off from electricity and obviously as soon as water is subsided they will be reconnected as quickly as possible many parts of the CBD are being disconnected today these are large buildings and they have substations in them small substations generally in a lot of those large high rise CBD buildings and some of those substations located in basements will flood today and flood quickly and we need to disconnect that power so that means the whole buildings will be without power so again people should not be going to work going into the city because many of those buildings will be shut down it is very important I think for myself and our senior emergency people to be based here at the disaster coordination centre and be monitoring events not only here in Brisbane but across a very large region of Queensland as you heard from my earlier report as massive as the event in Brisbane may be we have equally significant events in places throughout regional Queensland escalating situations in Chinchilla in Texas, in Gundawindi so we will be monitoring those today as well like the Prime Minister I will be looking for the first reasonable and available opportunity to be out talking to people who have been affected by this flood but I think Queenslanders want to make sure that the person in charge is in charge today and that is where I intend to be the Lord Mayor advises me that the two major evacuation centres for Brisbane will be the RNA show grounds and the QE2 stadium but he is equally now working as I speak with a number of major churches in and around the Brisbane area all of whom have facilities such as halls in local communities often on high ground where smaller evacuation facilities may be set up so that process is happening now. I should say that happened spontaneously overnight in Ipswich there are official evacuation centres in Ipswich but spontaneously local communities got together opened up the local church hall took their sleeping bags down and kept everybody safe so I thank them for showing a bit of ingenuity there and that's I think made a big difference to the effort in Ipswich Can I just ask the staff that are coming forward today Mix Slater and I were talking to a number of defence personnel who were there and he asked them to put up their hand if they were on leave and every hand went up so these were people who were otherwise on leave and they'd come back off leave there willingly and very enthusiastically helping in theatre Can I add that while we are managing an immediate emergency response in a number of places here in the south east and the south west we know that there are numbers of towns who are now over their flood experience and moving very much into the recovery and rebuilding phase can I say to all of those towns Major General Mix Slater and his duties remain with his focus on them so as Brisbane experiences this the recovery and rebuilding process under the leadership of Major General Mix Slater continues full steam ahead so we're not delaying that or being diverted by these events in Brisbane Mix Slater has been already this week out in places like Bundaberg and Emerald and will continue to do so so the rebuilding effort is happening alongside the emergency effort here in the south east so to regional Queensland nothing is being delayed because of these events here in Brisbane we are looking continuously to rebuild regional Queensland as soon as humanly possible so Prime Minister well our assistance obviously flows in various stages as the flood hits people and then we move into the recovery stage under our natural disaster relief arrangements what we do firstly we provide the emergency payments that I've referred to then we provide assistance to households to small businesses to primary producers households to deal with the loss of household contents and effects small businesses and primary producers to provide cleanup money and then concessional loans so that they can get back on their feet apart from that we've triggered the income support arrangements that I spoke about earlier and then we move of course to dealing with the infrastructure damage that flood waters have done we aren't in a position for all parts of Queensland to assess that yet we can start doing assessments as flood waters subside and we can see what's happened to roads to bridges to essential community infrastructure under our arrangements we can move to better what was there before they are not simply replacement arrangements we can provide better than was there before so for example if we were rebuilding a levy then there might be a need to make that a better state in order to resist flood waters but all of those assessments are going to have to be done as flood waters subside it's going to be a major major task assessing that infrastructure and recovery need I'm pleased that we were able to make mix later available to lead the recovery work here of course a very senior and distinguished member of our Australian Defence Force we will continue as we move to that phase of infrastructure rebuilding to be working in partnership with the Queensland Government and with the local Government so that we can get the infrastructure back up and in appropriate state for the people of Queensland that's why I say the task of the Federal Government is to stand shoulder to shoulder in these difficult days but also for the many many months of recovery and rebuilding to come I think it would be helpful for me to give you some information to understand the enormity of what is on our back doorstep by way of water in 1974 when there was no dam and no dam wall the inflows into that catchment area coming down the Brisbane river were about one and a half million litres of water what is now coming through that dam is two and a half million litres of water obviously at the end of this event we will do a significant review of the Wyvernhoe capacity but I think we need to be realistic about whether any dam could hold back all of two and a half million litres of water what we do know is that if that dam wall was not there two and a half million litres would be coming through Brisbane so we already have a very significant mitigation effect for this event the Wyvernhoe Dam we will be looking to assess the capability and performance of the Wyvernhoe Dam after this event we will similarly be looking at sensible practical flood mitigation across the state but I should make the point that a number of the river systems that have flooded here in Queensland already have large dams on those rivers the Emerald flood for example the Fairburn Dam is on that river system in the Burnett the Paradise Dam that was built in 2005 here in Brisbane the Wyvernhoe Dam and there are two dams on the system that went into the St George area so there are dams on these river systems dams do not stop floods dams can help mitigate and minimise some of the impact that might have happened without them but a dam cannot stop the sort of flood that is coming across the plains of the Lockyer Valley and the catchment area into the Wyvernhoe system clearly we will have to do updates but I do not have that figure just yet we have still got unfolding circumstances but in Brisbane for example the current modelling predicts 19,700 homes affected if you took an average of three people in each house that is directly affected with their properties completely flooded you are starting to get some very big numbers similar sorts of 4,000 homes in Ipswich but when we say affected we also have places where they do not have floodwaters but they are completely cut off they have not been able to leave the town in some cases now for two and a half weeks and we have been flying supplies medical supplies and food into them so these floods have an effect whether they are in your backyard and coming through your floorboards or whether you are just isolated and unable to leave your town so we will certainly be looking at updating those numbers but the other point I would make is that all of the modelling made earlier and the city of Ipswich are just vastly different places than they were in 1974 the city of Brisbane is a major capital home to more than a million people in the direct area so there is going to be a very big effect Premier it is only early but is the water responding to those computer models that the projections are based on is it doing exactly what the computer thought it would to date the predictions are proving to be very accurate at river levels the hydrologists predicted that Ipswich would get to somewhere between 18 and 19 metres around midnight last night it got to about 17 and a half and by 4am this morning it was 18.9 so within a couple of hours there are very high levels of precision in terms of where the flood water is going the early flood water seems to be going according to prediction but we really have to see this afternoon as it starts to increase if you're anywhere near any of the coloured lines on those maps even if you're not directly in that area you should be ready to take precautions and be ready to move if you need to Premier there's been examples of paddock mine does that sort of concern you when so much the rest of the response is so organized with evacuations that has been set up and secondly when you have so many organisations and people pitching and working together how do you react though when you hear reports of looting look in relation the people of Brisbane and Ipswich have had a relatively short amount of time to prepare for this event and if they've gone out and stocked up their homes with groceries then that was exactly the right thing to do the last thing we want is supermarkets full of food and people completely isolated without food and unable to access it so for many people going out yesterday and stocking up their food supplies their medic, getting their prescriptions filled etc was a very prudent preparation to make so I wouldn't necessarily assume that because supermarket shelves are empty that people have been irresponsible or panic buying it is appropriate in these events shops are likely to be closed for many days people may not have flood water in their own homes but maybe cut off from getting out of their neighbourhood and getting to supplies so if people have got enough supplies in their home then we don't need to use emergency resources and send the SES or other people in by flood boat to supply them so it's actually smart thinking and as I said I'm happy if there's empty supermarket shelves it means right now that people have got grocery supplies in their homes in relation to looting look I don't think there's any word bad enough for the people who do these sorts of things these people are out of their home in the most dire of circumstances they've had to flee in the middle of the night they've had little to take with them and whatever is left in their homes I want that there when they get home so anybody who sees any activity please report it to the police police are out and about patrolling and they will be in the days to come to prevent this sort of activity I think the entire community reacts with disgust when we see people take advantage of those people who are suffering this event Premier we've heard about the possible outbreak of disease following these floods has any preparation been put into place for this? Across Queensland we've had a very major supply operation over the last week of additional mass shots Hepatitis B and supplies of mosquito repellent because obviously in some parts we're worried about mosquito-borne diseases so those supplies have been out there doctors and health centres and clinics have been ensuring that people who are involved in the cleanup are assisted to know what they should be doing obviously it's things like rubber gloves as well I should say that as the cleanup starts people should be very careful going into muddy areas in thongs can mean that you're going to be standing on glass and metal and often it's those cuts after a flood that make people more at risk of serious infection. To date while we have seen some of those sorts of incidents they've been relatively minor we don't haven't seen any large scale public health issues sorry there's one other message that I did want to get out and if you guys couldn't help that would be great it seems completely ridiculous that I would be saying to people in this circumstance that we should conserve water we have massive amounts of water flowing past our doorsteps however it is possible that our water treatment plants could be affected by this flood and we may see some issues around drinking water in days to come so people should be conserving water so that those water treatment plants that are working can continue to supply the volumes that we need those people who can get bottled water in we will be able to get supplies of bottled water through the ADF so it's not only a reason to panic now's not a time as crazy as it sounds now's not a time to be wasting water because we don't quite know what might happen with our water supply as water treatment plants become affected we have more than one water treatment plant in Brisbane they won't all be affected but we might have a limiting of supply in the days after so please don't go drawing on that water supply any more than you need to as strange as that might seem can I just to add two factual things just prompted by the various questions the federal government has triggered our health incident centre so that will obviously work alongside Queensland on any necessary public health response and as the Premier said lots of people did go and stock up on the groceries yesterday that meant a lot of people were there for using ATMs and there have been reports of ATMs that are out of cash we're of those reports and the reserve bank will be working with our banking system with obviously the individual banks to ensure that there are cash supplies but it is possible that people could go to a location today where they normally go to access cash and find that the ATM doesn't have cash for them and if they needed to access cash then obviously they may have to look at another ATM to do that but the reserve bank will be working with our banks on ensuring that cash supply is maintained okay folks thank you very much we'll do another two hourly update at 11.30am in this room thank you