Police divers secure the Ford 250 in which a Laidley woman, 83, drowned while crossing this creek.

A LAIDLEY woman, 83, drowned yesterday morning when the Ford F250 her husband was driving was swept off a Laidley Creek causeway.

The vehicle drifted off the roadway and sank 20 metres downstream.

Her husband, 81, managed to escape the submerged utility and was rescued by neighbours.

Toowoomba District Police Inspector Mark Thornton said the couple was driving from Laidley towards Forest Hill on the Old Laidley-Forest Hill Road at 7.30am when tragedy struck.

At the time, the creek was more than one metre over the road, the metre-marker was submerged and the utility was quickly swept off the left-hand side of the road.

Ambulance officers took the man to the Laidley Hospital at 9am to treat him for shock.

He was too distressed to be interviewed by police yesterday.

Police divers from Brisbane were delayed one-and-a-half hours because of local flooding.

They entered the swollen creek at 1.30pm to retrieve the woman's body which was still in the vehicle.

The retrieval operation took about 45 minutes.

A report into the woman's death will be prepared for the Coroner.

The water level had dropped to half a metre when the utility was towed out of the creek late yesterday afternoon.

The creek was swollen after parts of the Lockyer Valley received up to 250mm of rain overnight Wednesday.

In a busy morning for the Lockyer Valley SES, volunteers rescued a father, his five-year-old son and their family cat from a flooded caravan 300 metres downstream from where the woman drowned.

The father and son had slept overnight in the caravan, which was located at the rear of a house that backed onto Laidley Creek.

They were rescued by the Swift Water Rescue Service boat at 10.30am as the water level was lapping at their bed.

Emergency Services are warning the public not to drive through floodwaters as two more vehicles were swept away yesterday.