Cyclone Alfred: Flood recovery the focus as smelly cleanup begins

Anthony Lay has already thrown away dripping carpets, mattresses, chairs and a waterlogged drum kit, but the big flood clean up has only just begun.

His Oxley property, south of Brisbane, was one of many inundated by floodwaters in ex-tropical cyclone Alfred’s downpours.

He was overwhelmed by a foul stench seeping out of his possessions as he carried each to the curb for the council to take away.

“It’s exhausting - 2022 took a lot out of me, then this one is a little bit more,” he told AAP as he threw away much of what was downstairs.

“Thankfully it didn’t get up so high.”

His whole home went under in 2011’s devastating floods and floodwaters reached the second storey in 2022, but he had hoped to escape the worst of Alfred.

“Being in this area, there could have been a slight chance of it happening but I didn’t think this time it would get in,” Mr Lay said.

Rain has finally eased in flood-hit regions, but dozens of warnings remain in parts of southeastern Queensland and northern NSW.

Many areas are still cut off as the focus shifts to recovery efforts in areas where water has subsided.

Damage assessments have started, even while some 85,000 homes and businesses in both states remain without power.

Meanwhile, a different type of storm is brewing in northern NSW over people occupying vacant homes in Lismore.

They were acquired as part of a buyback scheme after the devastating 2022 floods and now authorities want about 40 people who moved in gone for good.

NSW Premier Chris Minns highlighted “overseas visitors, tourists, backpackers” living in the homes and vowed to demolish them.

However, those inside have no intention of leaving.

The area is home to NSW’s highest number of rough-sleepers and many insist they are squatters at the front of the nation’s housing crisis, not backpackers.