Fatalities
14 people lost their lives, including 10 people who were drowned in the suburbs of Yeronga, Newmarket, St Lucia, and the city of Ipswich upriver and to the West.
The first flood related deaths were at 11:20pm on 24 January. Raymond Roy Davidson (29 years, from Wacol) and Hazel Dulcie Afflick (40 years) were killed in a head on collision at Wacol, both drivers being blinded by gale force winds and heavy rain.
An army amphibious LARC vehicle was carrying out excavation work at Bellbowrie when the vehicle hit high tension wires. Two men, Corporal Neville Barry Hourigan and Captain Ian Kerr of the Australian Army Reserve (then called the Citizens Military Force) were thrown from the vehicle and killed. Bill Lickiss, Member of Mount Cootha jumped from the vehicle to save them, but both men died.
A young child, Shane David Patterson (of Yeronga) was swept from his father's arms on a causeway over Oxley Creek in Inala and drowned. An elderly woman was washed away in Ashgrove on 26 January. After the floods receded, the body of a man was found at Milton, and the bodies of three other were found in South Brisbane.
In addition to those that drowned, Robert Adams (aged 56 years) died of a heart attack during an evacuation of a carvan park at Newmarket, and Aiden Sutton (a civilian working with the Qld Police, aged 50 years) was found dead at home.
Read more about this topic: 1974 Brisbane Flood