Queensland's 'mud army' has been resurrected to help clean up flood-ravaged areas across the southeast, with the damage bill from Cyclone Debbie tipped to climb into the billions.
Volunteers will gather in Logan, south of Brisbane, on Tuesday to help residents whose homes were damaged by floodwaters off the Albert and Logan rivers last week.
It comes six years after 23,000 people volunteered their time to help clean up the damage in the week following floods which swamped Brisbane, Ipswich and the Lockyer Valley.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the devastation caused by the category four cyclone, as it made its way across north Queensland and down the east coast, was expected to cost "billions".
But she moved to reassure affected residents they were not alone.
"We are here, we're going to be with you every step of the way and we're going to make sure whatever support is offered we're going to get to you as quickly as possible," she said on Monday.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull visited residents in the Logan suburb of Eagleby on Monday, one of the worst affected areas in last week's floods.
He said he was committed to replacing damaged infrastructure with more flood-proof buildings.
"These are record flood events so we're going to have to be better prepared for the next one because clearly this will be repeated," he said.
"We really now have the challenge of making sure our building standards, our planning standards, take into account that we are the land of droughts and flooding rains and fires as well."
SES worker Jim Ferguson said he and his colleagues were moved to tears after pulling a family to safety at Luscombe, on the northern Gold Coast on Friday, only to watch their house float away along the Albert River shortly after.
"The emotion just came over us," he told AAP on Monday.
"What if we hadn't got there when we did?
"What if the house had gone while we were still tied up to it?"
While the clean-up in north and southeast Queensland continues, residents in the central Queensland city of Rockhampton remain on flood watch as they prepare for the Fitzroy River to peak at 9m on Wednesday.
The Bureau of Meteorology originally predicted it would rise to 9.4m, which would make it the region's worst flood in more than 63 years.
It would have threatened more than 5400 properties and 3000 homes.
Rockhampton Regional Council mayor Margaret Strelow said the downgraded prediction would make a huge difference to the number of properties affected.
"We would expect probably over 200, maybe 215 proprieties, will have water over the floorboards," she said.
"A lot more will have a metre or more of water through their yards."
