In Just Hours, the Waters Rose to Roof Level
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
Ex-Cyclone Alfred as it happened: Ipswich on alert as Bremer River nears major flood level
The Bremer River is expected to reach a major flood level of 11.7m by around midnight, and then continue rising to about 12.35m in the early hours of Tuesday. The Bureau of Meteorology’s senior forecaster Gabriel Branescu says most of the heavy rain the region has seen over the past dew days has now dissipated. Major flood warnings remain in place for Warrill Creek, Lockyer Creek and the Logan River.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s senior forecaster Gabriel Branescu just joined Kelly Higgins-Devine to provide an update on current flood levels in waterways across the south-east.
He told her that the Bremer River was sitting at 11.42 metres as of 11pm AEST.
It is expected to rise above what is considered a Major Flood Level of 11.7m by around midnight, and then continue rising to about 12.35m in the early hours of Tuesday.
Here are the other flood warnings that remain current across south-east Queensland and northern NSW:
Minor flood warnings remain in place for:
The Burrum and Cherwell River Catchments
The Mary River
The Maroochy River
The Noosa River
The Brisbane River downstream of Wivenhoe Dam
The Upper Condamine River
The Tweed River
The Bellinger and Kalang Rivers
The Macleay River
The Orara River
There is a Moderate flood warning in place for the Stanley River at Woodford, the Albert River and Laidley Creek.
There is a flood watch warning for the Brisbane River at the Gregor Creek, as well as the Nerang and Coomera Rivers.
In NSW, there are also Moderate flood warnings for the Wilsons River, Clarence River and Richmond River.
Major flood warnings remain in place for Warrill Creek, Lockyer Creek and the Logan River.
Final flood warnings are current for the Cooper Creek, the Nambucca River, the Brunswick River and Marshalls Creek.
Mr Branescu says current forecasts suggest that most of the heavy rain the region has seen over the past dew days has now dissipated, and daily rain totals should stay below 10mm.
Flood-weary residents face rising rivers despite rain finally stopping in central US
Four days of rain finally subsided across the South and Midwest Monday, but the danger for many communities is increasing. A half dozen states have rivers at “major flood” stage, according to the National Weather Service. Twenty-one measurement points along rivers in the Midwest and South are currently at major flood stage, and that number is forecast to roughly double in coming days. The Kentucky River crested in the state capital of Frankfort Monday morning just shy of the city’s protective flood walls. Over a foot of rain has fallen since Wednesday across the mid-South where some locations – including Memphis, Tennessee – recorded nearly an entire spring’s worth of rain in just a few days.The storms have left at least 22 people dead across seven states, including 10 in Tennessee. Among them are a 5-year-old boy found in a storm-damaged home in Arkansas and a Kentucky boy who was swept away by floodwaters while walking to his school bus stop. The NWS has rated at least 60 tornadoes since the storms began, with five rated as EF3 strength.
Floodwaters inundated communities across a broad swath of the central US on Sunday, the result of days of rain from storms that claimed at least 24 lives since last week.
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Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby was on AccuWeather Early to provide an update on the flooding in the central U.S. after the historic rain event over the weekend.
(CNN) — Four days of rain finally subsided across the South and Midwest Monday, but the danger for many communities is increasing. They only have to look at the rapidly rising rivers to see what’s coming.
“As long as I’ve been alive — and I’m 52 — this is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” Wendy Quire, the general manager of the Brown Barrel restaurant in downtown Frankfort, Kentucky, told The Associated Press.
A view of the severe flooding in Frankfort, Kentucky. (Photo credit: A view of the severe flooding in Frankfort, Kentucky.)
Floodwaters inundated communities across a broad swath of the central US on Sunday, the result of days of rain from storms that claimed at least 24 lives since the middle of last week.
Rivers are still on the rise in several already flood-ravaged states. A half dozen states have rivers at “major flood” stage, according to the National Weather Service. Twenty-one measurement points along rivers in the Midwest and South are currently at major flood stage, and that number is forecast to roughly double in coming days.
From northeast Arkansas to the Ohio River, widespread flooding is having devastating impacts. Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby reports live from one small town feeling those effects.
Most of the major flood points are inside Kentucky. The Kentucky River crested in the state capital of Frankfort Monday morning just shy of the city’s protective flood walls.
“It’s good to be able to come out this morning and it not be raining. We’re thankful for that, but we’re still dealing with water rising,” said John Ward, sheriff of Kentucky’s Hardin County, which is south of Louisville on a bend in the Ohio River.
“I’ve seen homes underwater that have never had water. I don’t think people were ready,” Ward told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on Monday morning.
The severe thunderstorms may be over, but flooding is far from the Ohio Valley down to the Mississippi Valley.
Over a foot of rain has fallen since Wednesday across the mid-South where some locations – including Memphis, Tennessee – recorded nearly an entire spring’s worth of rain in just a few days. On Saturday, over a dozen daily rainfall records were set in Arkansas and Tennessee. Little Rock got over six inches, and Nashville got nearly four inches. Memphis hit 5.47 inches, making Saturday the city’s wettest day ever in April.
The rain was dumped by destructive storms that also produced tornadoes across the central US. The NWS has rated at least 60 tornadoes since the storms began, with five rated as EF3 strength. As of Saturday, the US had seen 10 consecutive days of tornadoes.
Devastating floods have left homes and businesses underwater across multiple states, and rivers are still rising in some areas.
The storms have left at least 22 people dead across seven states, including 10 in Tennessee. Among them are a 5-year-old boy found in a storm-damaged home in Arkansas and a 9-year-old Kentucky boy who was swept away by floodwaters while walking to his school bus stop. On Sunday, a father and son were killed on a Georgia golf course when the tree they were sheltering under during high winds fell, Muscogee County Coroner Buddy Bryan told CNN.
“Remember, this event is not over until the waters have receded, until the areas that have flooded are fully dry, until we don’t have saturated ground that could create mudslides over roads and bridges,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Monday.
In several parts of Kentucky, the intense flooding has endangered the local water supply. Authorities in Mercer County expected to run out of water Monday night, according to a statement from the schools superintendent.
People in a boat navigate a flooded road on Sunday in Frankfort, Kentucky. (Photo credit: Jon Cherry/AP via CNN Newsource)
The Frankfort Plant Board announced Sunday it had turned off the electrical equipment used to pump water from the river and asked customers to “ration their water usage.” And in Harrodsburg, water pumps were turned off overnight as flood levels came close to the city’s “raw water station.” Now, “we are using stored water and the supply is limited,” reads a Facebook post from the city.
Floodwaters devastate swath of Kentucky
The widespread flooding has triggered evacuations, water rescues and warnings to move to higher ground across the Bluegrass State. Many people are still in harm’s way as others start to dig out of the muck, but a dramatic return to winter-like chill early this week poses another complicating factor.
Frankfort, Kentucky, is hitting a new record river height, leading to mandatory evacuations, dozens of homes under water and water rescues.
In Frankfort, the Kentucky River crested at its second-highest level on record Monday morning, just shy of 1978’s devastating flooding and worryingly close to what the city’s flood protections can handle.
“I’ve heard tales about 1978,” resident Karen Kuhner told CNN affiliate WKYT. “I wasn’t here then and my heart just goes out to all of the people that aren’t able to leave and whose homes are more than likely going to be destroyed.”
Buffalo Trace Distillery, which prides itself as one of the oldest continuously operating distilleries in the US, was also impacted by flooding in Frankfort from the Kentucky River, a spokesperson said. The distillery will be closed until at least Thursday and damage assessments can’t be performed until “the facilities become safe to navigate,” the spokesperson added.
A Canadian goose swims in the rising Ohio River at the intersection of River Riverside Place and Ben Bernstein Place, Sunday, in Covington, Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati. (Photo credit: Carolyn Kaster/AP via CNN Newsource)
In Prospect, along the Ohio River, the owners of Captain’s Quarters Riverside Grille responded to the incursion of dirty river water by deliberately flooding the restaurant with fresh water, keeping most of the silt and debris out. In a Facebook video, co-owner Andrew Masterson explained that when the flood recedes, it will be easier to clean up damage from clean water than river water.
“It is a huge interruption to our business. It’s a significant cost, but we know it comes with the territory of being on the river,” Masterson told CNN on Monday.
Emergency crews worked Sunday night to contain a large spill of motor oil and diesel fuel at a trucking garage outside Butler, CNN affiliate WKRC reported. Pendleton Emergency Management spokesman Rob Braun said the spill, caused by high water, was near Northern Elementary.
Residents of Butler and Falmouth were ordered to evacuate Saturday – anyone who stayed behind was warned their utilities could go out, and water rescuers might not be able to reach them if needed, according to CNN affiliate WCPO.
Several Falmouth residents came to the aid of an older neighbor to help her move belongings out of her home.
“Most of the people here (don’t) know the homeowner,” one of the residents told WCPO. “They just seen us back up here with the trailer and they just stop and say, ‘Can we help?’”
Major flooding leaves cities underwater
Water rescues were carried out Sunday near Colesburg, about 30 miles south of Louisville, the county sheriff reported, as waters rose rapidly in the Rolling Fork River.
Drone footage of nearby New Haven shows the aftermath of the river bursting its banks, flooding properties on the town’s main street with brown water. As the road leads out of town, it takes on the appearance of a causeway, fields hidden under vast quantities of water.
So many roads across Kentucky were impassable due to flooding over the weekend that the state ran out of road-closing barriers, the Hardin County sheriff said.
Farther east, footage from Wilmore shows a line of homes fully surrounded by water – some with the water right up to their rooflines. Red inflatable boats are seen moving around the neighborhood on waterways above what presumably are yards and streets.
Even communities far from major rivers are trying to contain damage from swollen streams. In western Kentucky, Kevin Spraggs, the top elected official in Marshall County, spent much of his weekend alongside local jail inmates filling sandbags, CNN affiliate WPSD reported.
“The water’s at levels that I’ve never seen here,” Spraggs told the station. “We’ve got a couple of watersheds that we’re in fear the levees may breach.”
The Kentucky Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, the Administrative Office of the Courts in Frankfort, and Hardin County courts were closed Monday. The Franklin County courts will be closed all week.
Appointments at offices to receive new driver’s licenses are being postponed, Gov. Beshear said, exactly one month before the federal government’s deadline requiring updated REAL ID-compliant licenses to board planes at domestic airports.
The Ohio River, which runs through Louisville, rose more than 5 feet in 24 hours and is expected to rise significantly higher over the next few days, Mayor Craig Greenberg said Saturday.
Flooding also plagued parts of Ohio. Emergency crews rescued a woman without a home who woke up surrounded by water in downtown Cincinnati early Sunday, CNN affiliate WKRC reported.
Later that day, another rescue was made after a driver ignored road closure signs by a former amusement park in the city. The driver was not injured but had to be rescued from their almost completely submerged vehicle, police told CNN affiliate WLWT. CNN reached out to the Cincinnati Police Department for comment.
AccuWeather’s Jon Porter shares the exclusive AccuWeather estimate of damage and economic loss from the severe storms and major flooding over the weekend totaling between $80 and $90 billion dollars.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders took an aerial tour in northern Arkansas on Monday, after their tornadoes and flooding came on the heels of dry, windy weather that sparked nearly 100 wildfires.
“If there has been a natural disaster event, it has happened here in the last month,” she said.
The City of Clarksville and Montgomery County issued a joint local state of emergency after more than 118 residential properties and 14 commercial properties were impacted from recent flooding, with a third of reported damages classified as major.
Severe storms along the southeast coast Monday have also caused snarls for travelers, with nearly 7,000 flights within, into, or out of the US delayed Monday, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport was the hardest-hit, with more than 50% of flights delayed as of the evening.
The storms could impact this week’s Masters golf tournament in Georgia. Augusta National Golf Club initially said the gates of the iconic venue “will not open as scheduled for Monday’s practice round,” but then reversed the decision in response to an improved forecast.
CNN’s Taylor Romine, Joe Sutton, Amanda Jackson, Karina Tsui, Susannah Cullinane, Jacob Lev, Zenebou Sylla, and Zoe Sottile and CNN Meteorologist Gene Norman contributed to this report.
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At least 25 killed, dozens missing after overcrowded boat capsizes in Congo
The vessel was believed to have more than 100 passengers on board. It capsized a few hundred meters (yards) into the journey along the Fimi River. It is the latest such tragedy to strike Congo.
The vessel was believed to have more than 100 passengers on board after leaving from the town of Inongo, northeast of the capital of Kinshasa. It capsized a few hundred meters (yards) into the journey along the Fimi River, the latest such tragedy to strike Congo.
A search was underway for the missing hours later on Tuesday as concerns rose that the death toll could be far higher.
Family rescued from Taree floods sought refuge on roof of their new home
Seeanna Briscoe’s family were airlifted from the roof of their new home in Taree, NSW, on Wednesday. Her husband Troy, sons Jax and Cruz, her father Lawrence, their dogs and three baby chickens were winched to safety by a rescue helicopter. The family had been there just five months. Nothing they lost was insured and they are now homeless. More than 300 people were rescued from raging floodwaters that day. The Mid North Coast is bearing the brunt of the flooding with more than 50,000 people forced to evacuate. The only lifeline to the family is generous friends and family who are willing to lend a hand or a hand with a spare room or a car. Seeanna is helping flood victims in the hospital who have a raft of injuries, while her family finds refuge with different relatives. She is sleeping in a makeshift wing of the hospital, holed up until the waters recede. “Taree is an island now. We lost everything, the cars, everything,” she said.
“What else am I going to do?” she told the ABC.
It’s all hands on deck at the hospital and that includes healthcare worker Ms Briscoe, who on Wednesday lost almost everything.
Seeanna Briscoe’s husband, Troy, was told by emergency services to kick a hole in the roof to bring his family up above rising floodwaters. (Supplied)
Her husband Troy, sons Jax and Cruz, her father Lawrence, their dogs and three baby chickens were winched to safety by a rescue helicopter as raging floods claimed their newly rented Glenthorne home on Wednesday morning.
Ms Briscoe went to work the morning earlier thinking the incoming rain “was nothing like the 2021 floods”.
By midday she would be trapped at the hospital with all roads around Taree flooded, her family stranded at home.
Briscoe’s family were rescued from the roof of their new home while she was stranded at Taree Hospital. (Supplied)
At 8pm the second level of their home began to flood. Troy swam through the garage to fetch life vests for the children and told them to pack a bag of clothes each.
Through Tuesday night the family would progressively move higher and higher up their three-level home.
‘I didn’t know if my family would survive’
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Troy was told by emergency services to kick a hole in the roof and bring his family up above the house.
The family was rescued by helicopter. (Supplied)
They were soon on the roof with the floodwaters lapping at their feet.
“[Troy] said, ‘I don’t think anyone is coming, I think we’re gonna die’,” she recalled her partner saying as the flooding intensified on Tuesday evening.
“I didn’t know if my family would survive.
“I just kept telling him it would be daylight soon.”
From the helicopter her family had the most devastating vantage point of all, watching as their belongings swept into the deluge that has battered the Mid North Coast this week.
Videos taken by the family showed the frightening moment as their home was slowly swallowed.
Other footage showed them pacing on the roof trying to get the attention of emergency services above.
The family was rescued by an SES helicopter after living in the home for just five months. (Supplied)
PolAir rescued Ms Briscoe’s teenage sons first.
They were eventually bussed to safety in Tuncurry while her husband and father were dropped to safety on a nearby verandah.
The family had been there just five months. Nothing they lost was insured and they are now homeless.
Water rose quickly through the family’s home. (Supplied)
‘Taree is an island now’
Ms Briscoe is helping flood victims in the hospital who have a raft of injuries, while her family finds refuge with different relatives.
She is sleeping in a makeshift wing of the hospital, holed up until the waters recede. She plans to continue working “to keep my mind off it”.
When she can eventually leave she will have no home to go back to.
“Taree is an island now,” Ms Briscoe said.
” We lost everything, the cars, everything. ”
Treasured pictures, mementos, clothes, furniture, electronics and husband Troy’s prized Harley Davidson motorbike are likely lost forever.
The family are just one story among the more than 300 people who were rescued from raging floodwaters that day.
Taree has been inundated by floodwaters, with hundreds of rescues. (ABC News: Liam Patrick)
“The kids’ stuff is just stuff, at least they’re alive,” Ms Briscoe said.
“It’s traumatising for everyone, my kids don’t have a home and we’re actually homeless.”
Three maps that show the scale of the NSW flood disaster Photo shows A white house surrounded by water caused by flooding. Large parts of NSW are experiencing flooding, with more than 50,000 people preparing to evacuate. The mid-north coast is bearing the brunt of this weather event, with Taree and Port Macquarie particularly hard hit.
On her double shift on Thursday afternoon, Ms Briscoe told the ABC she is preparing for another night sleeping at the hospital.
When she finishes she has no home to go to, with her family spread out across the Mid North Coast sleeping in spare rooms of loved ones.
Their only lifeline right now are the generous friends and family willing to lend a hand or with a crowdfunding campaign to help their attempts to rebuild their lives.
In Just Hours, the Waters Rose to Roof Level
Torrents of predawn rainfall unleashed the flood on Mokwa, nearly 240 miles west of Abuja. At least 500 households across three communities were affected by the sudden and intense flood. Two roads were washed away and two bridges collapsed. Communities in northern Nigeria have been experiencing prolonged dry spells worsened by climate change, as well as excessive rainfall that leads to severe flooding during the brief wet season.”No Nigerian affected will be left behind or unheard of,” Nigeria’s president says.
In addition to the rising death toll, 11 people were injured and more than 3,000 people were displaced, Husseini added. At least 500 households across three communities were affected by the sudden and intense flood that built rapidly in about five hours, leaving roofs barely visible and surviving residents waist-deep in water, trying to salvage what they could and rescue others. Husseini added that two roads were washed away and two bridges collapsed.
In a statement on Friday night, President Bola Tinubu expressed condolences and said he’d directed the activation of an emergency response to support victims and “accelerate” recovery. He said that security agencies have also been asked to assist in emergency operations, which remain underway amid concerns that more bodies could be recovered in remote areas. “Relief materials and temporary shelter assistance are being deployed without delay,” the president said, promising “no Nigerian affected will be left behind or unheard of.”
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Flooding is common during Nigeria’s wet season. Communities in northern Nigeria have been experiencing prolonged dry spells worsened by climate change, as well as excessive rainfall that leads to severe flooding during the brief wet season. This flood, however, has been particularly deadly in Mokwa, a farming region near the banks of the Niger River. Mokwa community leader Aliki Musa said that the villagers aren’t used to such flooding. The chairman of the Mokwa local government area, Jibril Muregi, told a local news website that construction of flood-control works was long overdue.
(More Nigeria stories.)