Council crews answer SOS for Brisbane floods clean-up

A convoy of vehicles, equipment and 12 Field Services workers left Paget depot yesterday and are expected to arrive in Brisbane this afternoon.

Another crew from council’s Civil Ops is expected to also head south to Brisbane this Wednesday.

At this stage, they will be in Brisbane for two weeks, mainly helping with clean-ups in streets that were inundated.

Brisbane City Council reached out to regional Queensland councils for assistance under the Council to Council (C2C) program, coordinated by the Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ).

Mayor Greg Williamson said it was unusual to have a council the size of Brisbane City reaching out for assistance.

“They’re a huge council in their own right, but they just didn’t have enough trucks, enough low loaders and enough people on the ground with supervisory experience to get the job done,’’ he said.

More houses have been inundated in Brisbane than in the 1974 and 2011 floods.

Mayor Williamson said council did not hesitate in joining other regional councils in helping out on the ground in the south-east.

“When we’ve been through things in the past – the bushfires, floods and Cyclone Debbie –southern councils were the first to reach out and send teams, so it was the least we could do,’’ he said.

Brisbane City Council requested assistance from crews that could be self-sufficient.

The convoy that left Mackay yesterday included four body trucks, one low loader, two backhoes and four utes.

“It’s all about assisting with the street clean-up,” Mayor Williamson said.

“It’s about getting the stuff off the street and disposed of the way BCC wants it disposed of,’’ he said.

“I think it will be full on … If you’ve seen the mess that’s there – it’s just not a few streets,” Mayor Williamson said.

“There are dozens and dozens of streets and suburbs that are going to require a lot of TLC to get it back just to a working condition – not back to normal – just back to a working condition.”

Mayor Williamson said Brisbane City Council may renew its request for assistance past the two weeks.

But he said with the amount of support being provided by regional Queensland councils, he expected they would “break the back” of the job in that timeframe.