The year 1973 was one of the wettest known over much of Australia, and in keeping with the strong La Niña event that prevailed, the 1973/74 northern wet season started early. By the end of 1973 large areas of the country were saturated. Then came January 1974, which featured probably the biggest continent-wide drenching since
European settlement, inundating vast areas of the country. As monsoonal rains poured down, the Gulf Country of Queensland, and extensive areas of the dry centre, were turned into vast inland seas, isolating pastoral stations and causing heavy cattle losses. About 500 people were evacuated from
Normanton and
Karumba, while 250 stranded passengers on the Townsville-Mt Isa railway were air-lifted to Mt Isa. Some 400-600mm of rain inundated the southern Northern Territory and southwest Queensland in January, more than twice the average ANNUAL total at some locations.
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And then on January 27th
Brisbane copped it when waterways in the city experienced significant flooding. The
Brisbane River, which runs through the heart of the city, broke its banks and inundated the surrounding areas.It had been an exceptionally wet summer, and by late January most of southern Queensland's river systems were nearing capacity. Cyclone Wanda pushed the systems to the limit, and drew the Monsoonal Trough southward, providing the additional rainfall to the
Brisbane valley to produce widespread and severe flooding. The floods peaked at 6.6 meters according to the Port Office gauge at high tide at 2:15 am on January 29th. Continual, non-stop, very heavy rain had fallen for three weeks, leading up to the flood, which occurred on Sunday, 27 January 1974, during the Australia Day weekend. Large areas were inundated, with at least 6,700 homes flooded. Damage at the time was estimated at some $200 million (1974 Australian dollars). The 67,320 tonne Robert Miller unmoored and became adrift in the river. Two tugs were needed to control the large oil tanker. A barge was sunk after becoming caught under and damaging the Centenary
Bridge.8,500 homes were flooded in
Brisbane and
Ipswich. 6000 of these could not be recovered.
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