[16] Continual, heavy rain had fallen for three weeks, leading up to the flood, which occurred on Sunday, 27 January 1974, during the Australia Day weekend.

[15] The 67,320 tonne Robert Miller broke its moorings at Kangaroo Point swinging out into the river held by two emergency anchors that the shipyard had placed as a precaution.

When the first responders, consisting of the shipyard manager, Bill Dransfield, legendary rigger Fred Cotton and another shipyard employee, Billy Pinell managed to climb on board after hitching a ride on a small boat whose skipper braved the raging torrent, the men found that one anchor had been lost with clench pins sheared through and the remaining anchor only secured by the last clench pin which had failed but jammed the chain.

After using steel scaffold tube and other construction materials to secure that anchor the attention then focussed on starting the ship’s main engine which had not yet been fully commissioned.

[20] Two tugboats which managed to travel up the river arriving some hours after the initial rescue, were needed to control the 15 m high and 239 m long oil tanker.

Two men, Corporal Neville Hourigan and Captain Ian Kerr of the Australian Army Reserve (then called the Citizens Military Force) were thrown from the vehicle.

Bill Lickiss jumped into the water to save them and another CMF soldier, Corporal Ray Ruddy, swam from his undamaged vessel to take control of LARC 05.

[2] 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.

[2] In addition to those that drowned, Robert Adams (aged 56 years) died of a heart attack during an evacuation of a caravan park at Newmarket.

Aidan Sutton, a civilian working with the Queensland Police, aged 50 years, returned home to St Lucia for his reading glasses and was swept away in the flood waters, his body found in a tree.