This Newstead street is flooding every day. Frustrated business owners want answers

Waterloo Street in the inner-Brisbane suburb of Newstead is inundated with water most days during high tide – without a drop of rain falling from the sky.

Every day for the past couple of months, Kym Carson, who owns catering business Entice Me Catering and Cafe, has braced for the impending water.

“Whether it’s a high tide, king tide or a tide, you can see the water that starts bubbling up,” she said.

Flood management expert Dr Philip Haines says the influx is “effectively backwater tidal influence from the Brisbane River”, but Carson says it’s just getting worse.

And with cars constantly driving through the floodwater, her business is suffering.

“The concern is that the cars that come past are causing waves that come in and pretty much are ruining the business,” she said.

“Once we have rain or a rain event on top of that, my business will go under.”

Now, Carson is facing the prospect of packing up her business of 15 years altogether.

“[We] have to relook whether we relocate to go and do our catering at another venue, and so forth, because we don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said.

“At the end of the day, we’re losing revenue, so it’s a massive cost to a small business, and it’s hard enough to be in business at the moment.”

Nearby business Range Brewing is also affected by the road constantly being cut off.

“It basically just prohibits us from moving any of that stock from our warehouse to the brewery for our daily operations when it’s flooding,” said founder Matt McIver.

“We’re delayed in getting the finished beer back to the cold room, and it just creates a back-up of logistics that we have to wait around for, or pre-plan early in the day.”

While this reporter was covering the story on Wednesday, floodwater rose up to 190 millimetres in just under two hours.

Brisbane City Council workers also arrived, closing off the road to vehicles.

Parked cars were plunged into floodwater, with drivers who came back hours later none the wiser that their vehicle had been sitting in water.

Brisbane City Council said it was investigating the issue and expected to meet with disgruntled locals next Thursday.

Concerned about a repeat of the 2022 floods, Carson is hoping for urgent action before any heavy rain rolls in.

“What we’re trying to say to [the council is] there’s something seriously wrong, that it’s not a rain event, it’s just coming up every day,” she said.

During the 2022 flood, the water “was literally a metre – waist-deep – walking around in this street and around the other corner streets”, she said.

“Equipment was bobbing in my cafe, so that was shutting down my business for nearly four months and I had to restart.”

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