HOBBY farms and small businesses suffered some of the highest losses during the recent floods.
The Logan River Tree Farm was one of 47 casualties, per council figures, that copped serious damage to facilities and stock, which will take months to recover from.
The nursery’s owners Ailsa and Ian Thompson have had Logan’s “mud army” help clean up the grounds and sift through around 25,000 plants.
The outlook is not looking good. Mrs Thompson said around a third of her stock or 8000 sale-ready plants were lost.
Each tree in their nursery takes between 18 months and five years to grow to sale standard.
“I don’t know how much we’ve lost… we would usually have 25,000 trees and shrubs here,” she said.
“We may have lost a third of those, and some of them take five years or 18 months to get them ready for sale.”
Mrs Thompson said it could take another month for her and husband Ian to get anywhere close to selling plants again.
“We won’t have a lot to sell but we should have cleaned up, got the irrigation on, and worked out what we’ve got to sell,” she said.
Nearby at Bill Norris Oval, the Beenleigh Multisports Association has stopped indefinitely for the next two months while clean ups continue.
The entire square kilometre of playing space, made up of four rugby league and 9 touch football fields was completely wiped out.
“The whole system went under 30 feet of water, all the electricals were damaged, we’ve got nothing left,” club president Michael Breene said.
This means schools and community groups that rely on the facilities need to find another location to host events.
“Just about all the local schools and community groups use it,” he said.
“Logan districts sport for primary schools has already cancelled their whole first term program, and the Tonie Carroll cup was moved to another location.”
Mr Breene said the federal and state governments looked after them well but criticised the support from council.
“All we asked them to do was to bring the street sweeper because the car park is like ice when it gets wet, and we asked for some portaloos because the sewerage system has collapsed,” he said.
“They basically told us we have to fund it ourselves despite the fact we lost everything and don’t have insurance, so I’m really disappointed.”
Economic development chair Cr Jon Raven said the entire council has been tirelessly inspecting properties, checking in with owners, and ensuring the highest level of care is provided to the community.
He said the focus over the last fortnight has been on the most vulnerable people in the community.
“Initially, we were prioritising vulnerable people, so people who were elderly, disabled, or had specific circumstances that made it hard for them to clean up quickly, and then they get triaged after that,” he said.
“Community clubs often have their own pool of volunteers ready to help, so they have better access to resources, whereas an individual doesn’t have those same networks.”
Last week, council launched a $300,000 recovery assistance package for flood-affected businesses.
Eligible businesses can access up to $5,000 to help contribute to costs covering a range of purposes, such as those associated with relocation down to digital and marketing support.
Cr Teresa Lane also said some development application and business licence fees will be waived.
Nursery says council falls short after pleas for help
