Tough time for Cedar Pocket farmers with no time to stop to mourn

Barbara Gear hasn't had time to stop and grieve after police made the grim discovery of the body of 54-year-old motorcyclist Phillip Lambert on her dairy farm at Cedar Pocket near Gympie on Thursday.

Early on Wednesday morning, Mr Lambert was riding home from Gympie shopping centre, where he worked as a cleaner, when his motorbike hit a wall of water in torrential rain on a dark country road.

His body was recovered at about 11.30am on Thursday.

Records show an incredible 352 millimetres of rain fell at Cedar Pocket over five hours.

The floodwater swept away all of Barbara and Robert Gear's boundary fences, destroyed Granview Dairy's sorghum crop and scattered 400 head of cattle.

(Since we took Ms Gear's photograph on Thursday, her creek flats have flooded again.)

Cattle were forced to swim for their lives after they were caught in the dangerous weather event, the intensity of which hadn't been predicted.

While Ms Gear understandably did not want to discuss the loss of a valued member of her close-knit community, she did give insight into the most frightening flood she has ever witnessed.

In the exhausting hours since, she has worked tirelessly to re-erect smashed fences, helped dozens of emergency services workers who were combing their property, taken stranded workers back on the farm, and searched for her prized cows whose udders were painfully full, out in paddocks that were cut by debris-filled water.

Fences have to be fixed to stop cows getting on the road. (ABC Rural: Jennifer Nichols)

"We've collected all the girls from various paddocks. There were about 30 stuck up against the fence line that were swimming.

There were no fences whatsoever, they were actually up on the bitumen road trying to get away from the water," Ms Gear said.

"We've got most of them back. We've found three dead ones. One's in the top of a tree, one was swept under the highway culvert and she got stuck there so she obviously drowned. For the amount of cows that we have just finding three is quite good."

In the middle of the night her worker, James May, was driving his vehicle from side to side on Tin Can Bay Road, trying to herd cows that were dangerously standing in the middle of the main thoroughfare.

"The police turned up. They must have thought I was an idiot hooning, but they eventually pulled up behind me and had their lights on helping me get them off the road," Mr May said.

Next door, the flood triggered strong emotions for Geoff Pearce who only last month faced the same daunting clean-up after a terrifying flood on his other farm at Tansey.

"It's a little bit close to home for me this one, it's quite sad. It's a big effort, all the fence rebuilding and helping neighbours with stock replacement," Mr Pearce said.

"It's a big job but that's what people on the land do. They help each other out and all our neighbours here have been great. Emergency services have been great."

He has recovered three of his six cattle that were swept away. But the fences he fixed with friends, have been flooded again.

The biggest fall was at nearby Mount Wolvi on Tuesday night, where 425mm of rain fell overnight; 140 millimetres of that in just one hour.

The rain poured off the mountain down to the flats, flooding Alba aquaculture farm and owners Bambi and Andrew Gosbell's second dwelling.

"Water basically just poured through the house, so it just destroyed the carpets and all the furniture and everything. It ran through that house like like a torrent," Mr Gosbell said.

"It was just literally like something you just see out of the movies. It was torrential … It's taken out all the fencing on the boundary to the forestry and it's taken out between our neighbours so we've lost a fair bit of fencing as well."

The couple's main dam overflowed, but luckily the farm's crayfish ponds were undamaged and the sheep made their way to higher ground.

Several kilometres away Jason Lewis lost precious topsoil at his Cooloola Berries farm that was primed and ready to plant this year's strawberry runners.

"We've got neighbours missing cattle and sheep, and heaps and heaps of fences down, lots of farm equipment washed away, trucks have been in water," Mr Lewis said.

Water ran through their back shed on Wednesday, and on Friday swamped their farm cafe.

Australian Macadamia Society chief executive Jolyon Burnett said growers had been expecting a bumper crop and described the flooding as "heartbreaking".

Fields have flooded across south east Queensland and northern New South Wales and orchard floors have been damaged.

At Lindols Macadamias outside Gympie, water flowed through a shed and a large section of orchard.

Owner, Sandra Lindstrom said the true impact of the flood will not be known for months.

"Twenty or so young trees snapped off, but what often takes them out is a root rot/fungus. They were about 3 metres underwater on Wednesday," Ms Lindstrom said.

Her orchard has since been flooded again, by the storm system sitting over the region.

Source: Jennifer Nichols and David Barnott-Clement, ABC Rural 25 February 2022