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| Inevitable or avoidable? |
Geoff Heatherwick, who spent 25 years as a senior flood forecaster for the bureau, learned important lessons when he was on the front line during the 1974 Australia Day flood.
Making flood predictions for colleagues running Somerset Dam - Wivenhoe would not be completed for another 10 years - and for those managing the emergency response has given him experience in Brisbane floods that few can match.
And the 72-year-old said the general public needed to follow his lead in learning the history of floods in Brisbane so they were under no illusions about future risks.
"My grandmother was aged 16 at the time of the 1893 floods, and she spent the peak of the flood in the ceiling of their house in Lucy St, Albion," Mr Heatherwick said.
"Brisbane people need to understand, or be led to understand, that there are going to be future large and devastating floods.
"Part of that understanding is that Wivenhoe and Somerset dams will never contain these floods. The only thing in doubt is the timing."
Wivenhoe Dam was still being planned in 1974, and there were warnings then that it would not be a panacea for all possible floods.
"I remember Sir Charles Barton, the then co-ordinator-general, said: 'Let's hope people don't develop a Wivenhoe syndrome'," he said.
Mr Heatherwick said there had been more public debate about flooding after the 1974 event.
His comments come as lawyers planning a possible class action against the State Government over dam releases said they were in talks with hydrologists in South Africa and the US because they can't find "genuinely independent" experts in Australia.
John Walker of IMF, which is funding a $1 million search for evidence, said he was "finding it difficult to get experts in Australia".
"A lot of the time the client is the government, and it's difficult to get people who have the experience," he said.
The Courier-Mail last week revealed that alternative dam release strategies devised by the flood inquiry could have spared at least 5000 homes in 2011 - but the inquiry ignored the findings.
Thousands of flood victims have signed up for a possible class action against the State Government over its management of the dam. The flood inquiry's final report is due on Friday.
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