Walkers inspect erosion at Maroochydore Beach.

Nicholas Falconer / Sunshine Coast Daily

BEACHES were closed, sand was swept away from Noosa to Caloundra, and home owners looked on at canal waters lapping their gardens yesterday as the Sunshine Coast received a possible taste of the future.

With climate change experts predicting that tides in the range of the 2.16 metre high experienced yesterday would become more frequent, both authorities and property owners took a keen interest in just where both river and ocean levels reached.

But for most holiday makers the event was a curiosity that flushed clean, clear ocean water into the river system, making for ideal swimming conditions at the top of the tide.

Lifeguards were on high alert as significant run out tides from the rivers made for treacherous conditions around river mouths.

Sunshine Coast Council chief lifeguard Heath Collie said lifeguards would be on high alert throughout the dropping, middle of the day, tides during the next few days.

Mr Collie said Coolum Beach was closed throughout yesterday's high tide as was the Spit patrolled area which had sea water up to the dunal grass.

Other patrolled access points at Yaroomba and the Boardwalk were also closed until lifeguards could gain access to the beach.

Mr Collie warned beach goers to exercise caution over the next couple of days.

Coastal engineers were delighted that a beach wall built last year to protect infrastructure at Moffat Beach and its iconic Norfolk pines held up in the face of what was described as a “hammering” by the ocean.

Sunshine Coast Council spokesman Denis Shaw said the pines would have been at serious risk if the wall had not held.

The Tooway Lake entrance from the sea at Moffat was re-opened by the massive tides, Currimundi Lake flushed sea water into Lake Kawana, and homes fronting the Parrearra flood channel saw 300-400 mm of water top revetment walls reaching as far as the boundary landscaping of some properties.

One owner called council to complain that garden bark had floated away.

Erosion of the beach south of the Kawana SLSC also made some beach access points impossible to negotiate.

Further north trees were lost from the fragile dunal system along Alexandra Parade north of the Alex skate ramp, reinforcing the need for a plan to protect the busy coastal road, which is now less than 30 metres from the high tide line.

And at Noosa, a few pipes from the sand pumping system were lost along with sand from the beach.

Pumping will resume as tide levels fall and the holiday season ends.

At Twin Waters on the north bank of the Maroochy River, the tide peaked in the canals about two hours after the high tide on the beaches, topping revetment walls and inundating the edge of waterfront properties' gardens.

Environmental scientist Jane Beck, who has campaigned about the potential impact of floodplain development on river heights, expressed concern at an application from Stocklands to develop Twin Waters west.

The land between the motorway and Twin Waters has been redesignated rural, flood prone. However, Stocklands' proposal, submitted just before Christmas, seeks to fill to a level of 3.5 metres and construct a bund noise wall a further three metres high.

Ms Beck said the displaced water from such a development would need to go somewhere, probably increasing flooding on the southern bank of the Maroochy.

Meanwhile long time Sunshine Coast resident Joy Taylor said flooding of River Esplanade was nothing new.

Mrs Taylor said she witnessed the phenomenon several times in January when she and her husband lived there from 1975 to 1989.

She said high tides would flood the road and water would flow into their yard but never into the home. It had often been necessary to shift vehicles to higher ground.

The climate change adaptation associate professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Peter Waterman, said if yesterday's high tide event had been accompanied by a storm surge of two metres water would have flowed on to the streets of Cotton Tree and into the bottom floor units of some buildings.

“It is time to pay attention to where we are going in the future,” Professor Waterman said.

Want to see more?

Sunshine Coast king tides photo gallery