“Police assisted staff at Urangan Retirement Village to move residents from the lower floors to the upper floors to ensure that they were kept safe. We also evacuated the Hervey Bay Watchhouse, where we had five people… and relocated those people to Maryborough.”
A temporary police station was established at the Saint James School and the Hervey Bay Baptist Church became a makeshift evacuation centre.
Thunder began in the Fraser Coast town before dawn.
“It was a really strange event this morning because the thunder lasted for about four hours, non-stop,” resident John Wilson said.
“You know, usually thunder lasts for 10 to 15 minutes, but it kept going and kept going, hour on hour.
“We got huge lightning cracks, and then we started getting insanely heavy rain.”
Flash flooding swamped cars, houses and the local Woolworths supermarket in Pialba. People had to abandon their cars near the Officeworks store, Wilson said.
Two people had to be rescued from a car in Urangan about 7am, while firefighters carried out 10 evacuations and nine swift-water rescues.
Surface winds associated with Alfred had converged around Hervey Bay, creating a near-stationary storm, the weather bureau said.
“Importantly, the area of surface wind convergence is not moving, and so thunderstorms are continually developing over the top of Hervey Bay leading to huge rainfall totals,” a Bureau of Meteorology spokesperson said.
More than 72,300 lightning strikes were recorded.
In the 24 hours to 9am on Sunday, Hervey Bay received 261 millimetres of rain. Of that, 108 millimetres fell in one hour, and 233 millimetres in the six hours to 7.30am.
“We want to thank everyone as we continue to respond to that unfolding situation,” Premier David Crisafulli said on Sunday afternoon.
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