Seven Logan houses have been left uninhabitable after Wednesday’s destructive supercell, with residents still clearing damage as more severe storms threaten.
The 11 November storm tore roofs from houses, uprooted trees, snapped power poles and left tens of thousands without electricity.
Logan Mayor Jon Raven said warnings escalated rapidly.
“On this one we didn’t get a huge amount of notice,” he said.
“We knew there was a warning zone for heavy rain and very quickly it turned from being heavy rain to hail, to strong winds, to severe storm warnings.
“So we only had about 40 minutes’ notice.”
“We had concrete poles snapped by 125km/h winds,” Cr Raven said.
“It shows you just how intense it was at the height of the storm.”
Families Minister Amanda Stoker outlined the scale across the wider storm-affected region.
“We had 160,000 lightning strikes, initially 80,000 people without power and 400 powerlines down,” she said.
“Power has been steadily restored to this community.”
Cr Raven said about 14 Logan houses had been badly damaged, with more potentially unidentified.
“There were 20 assessments done. Of those 20 assessments, seven were completely uninhabitable — multiple rooms impacted or no roof,” he said.
“The people we’re really concerned about are those 14 homes that were incredibly badly damaged.
“There may be more out there that we don’t know about yet.”
He urged residents with severe structural or water damage to contact council.
“If your home was structurally damaged or severely damaged, is uninhabitable, or you’ve got rain in the home, please reach out to council,” Cr Raven said.
“We’ll put you in contact with the state government and make sure we get you what you need.”
Affected residents had been connected with the Department of Housing, while insurers, family and friends had helped others.
“They’re all traumatised. They literally saw cyclonic winds rip their home to shreds and they’re doing it really tough at the moment,” Cr Raven said.
“The uncertainty of how long it will take for their home to come back and what they’re grieving at the moment is so, so challenging.”
He named Marsden, Regents Park, Heritage Park and Crestmead among the suburbs most heavily affected.
“They’re working-class people. They’re often battling to make ends meet, and this sort of stuff shakes them to their core.”
SES South Eastern regional director Scott Revell said about 315 requests for assistance had been received across Logan by 11am Thursday.
Structural damage accounted for 46% and fallen trees 30%.
“The suburbs hardest hit generally are Crestmead, Logan Village, Marsden, Chambers Flat, Jimboomba and Waterford,” he said, also identifying Regents Park and Heritage Park.
Mr Revell said trees had fallen on roofs and driveways, while rain-soaked insulation had caused some internal ceilings to collapse.
“You see a lot of trees down on driveways, trees down on roofs,” he said.
“There’s been inundation of water into the roof cavity. That’s then saturated any insulation that might be there … and then the whole thing collapses.”
Hidden damage could emerge as more rain fell.
“They might not necessarily know there’s been inundation into their roof,” he said.
Yarrabilba was on generator power on Saturday morning while Energex repaired high-voltage lines.
“Last night, Energex workers were still out when there were 50,000 lightning strikes,” Cr Raven said.
“They messaged me and said, ‘Sorry, Mayor, we just can’t finish it tonight. It’s not safe, but we’ll be back on as soon as this rain clears.'”
He thanked workers for continuing repairs in challenging conditions.
“From the bottom of our hearts, on behalf of a grateful city, we want to say thank you to every single one of those Energex workers who is out there doing their best and working in some pretty challenging circumstances,” Cr Raven said.
At 4pm Saturday, Energex listed 1772 Logan customers without electricity, including 878 in Logan Village and 751 in Logan Reserve.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s Saturday afternoon forecast warned of potentially severe thunderstorms on Sunday and Monday, with damaging winds, large hail and heavy rain capable of causing flash flooding.
“We’re not out of the woods yet in Logan, though,” Cr Raven said.
“We know that the BoM is predicting that we’ll have severe storms on Monday and Tuesday.
“So while the community begins to recover and clean up, we’re keeping an eye on what could come next.”
He said the experience had left residents anxious.
“They’ve seen roofs ripped off homes. They’ve been without power. They’ve seen their neighbours struggling to make ends meet,” he said.
“So people are still worried about what comes on Monday.”
Meanwhile, families collected groceries at Logan Village Lions Hall after outages spoiled food.
Lighthouse Care co-founder Debbie Hill said volunteers had unloaded 17 pallets weighing 6.5 tonnes on Friday night.
“People are barely making it from week to week,” she said.
“When they lose hundreds of dollars, how do they recover from that?”
Ms Stoker said state funding had helped provide food to families while they recovered.
“For people who had filled up their fridge ahead of the storm, to lose that food can be devastating,” she said.
“The assistance that Lighthouse Care, with the help of the state government and council, is giving a little bit of a boost to get people to their next paycheck, making sure that they’ve got all of the essentials to feed their families.”
Eligibility for additional disaster assistance was still being assessed.
“Everybody who’s been severely impacted will have access to the help and support that they need,” Ms Stoker said.
“We’re making sure that we’re working with council to target the right people to make sure that nobody goes without during this disruption.”
“There’s a federally led set of criteria for whether or not something qualifies for being a disaster and triggering different responses as a consequence,” she said.
“That requires different evidentiary things to be ticked off, and they’re being worked through at the moment.”
SES crews urged residents to secure outdoor items, prepare emergency supplies, inspect damage only when safe and avoid fallen powerlines or water-damaged electrical equipment.
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