Grandmother Irene comstive shakes with sorrow as she surveys the damage to her Brisbane home following the city's worst flooding in almost four decades.

"Oh no, it's worse than I thought," the 83-year-old says as she looks at a sitting-room carpet turned from white to black by the surging waters which left the antique sofas, tables and chairs of her rosalie home strewn about.

"I thought it would be how I left it. It's not insured."

Amid an almost unbearable stench, Craig Yeoman was washing away the thick mud caking his home.

"We want to get the mud out before it dries," he explained from his home in paddington, a suburb badly affected when the Brisbane river broke its banks and seeped into some 26,000 homes on Wednesday and Thursday.

Despite the disaster, Yeoman said he was relieved he still had a house after the deluge. "Plenty of people haven't," he said.

Nearby in badly-hit goodna, a suburb of Ipswich about 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) from Brisbane, many houses have been totally destroyed by the floods.

Residents loaded trucks with ruined furniture, clothes and white goods to be sent to the tip, with some, like mother of two Julie McCoy, forced to toss out virtually every possession after flood waters reached as high as the ceiling.

"There's really not a lot we can save," she told AFP, before breaking into tears as a friend arrived to console her.

After a few minutes she added: "Ironically, yesterday I received a text message from my insurance company saying, “Make sure you pay your home insurance due tomor on Saturday”.

"It was probably a computer-generated message, but still, it hurts."

As the waters receded Friday, residents of Ipswich and Brisbane — Australia's third largest city — shovelled mud from homes, footpaths and roads as their communities struggled to come back to life.

Homeowners rushed to remove stinking carpet and toss out furniture ruined by the toxic, brown water which left behind coatings of mud inches thick.

Business operators dumped ruined stock and garbage on footpaths as they attempted to clean up while they waited for power to be restored, after it was cut during the disaster that left Brisbane looking like a "war zone".

"It's not pretty in there," one cafe owner told Sky News, saying that the water level inside her premises had been the same inside and out at the height of the floods, despite sandbagging, as water came in through doors and up through drains. "It's just — you begin again."

But she added: "We're lucky. We haven't lost our homes, we haven't lost loved ones."

Parts of Brisbane remain isolated by the floodwaters, forcing the military to bring in food and supplies overnight, while many traffic lights were still out.

As defence and emergency personnel combed small settlements west of Brisbane worst hit by the flash floods for more bodies, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said the capital was slowing reviving.

"The (Brisbane) CBD (central business district) is largely operational but there are still 10 buildings without power and they will be one of the priorities today," she told reporters Friday.

Bligh said a minesweeper had been requested from the military to search Moreton Bay, which the Brisbane river feeds into, for debris including boats and large parts of buildings, which were washed down the river.

The flash floods swept more than a dozen people to their deaths.

But the emphasis Friday was on homeowners returning to survey the heart-breaking damage to those houses inundated to their rooftops by the water.

"Some of these houses will have to be demolished," Bligh said.