Concerns for supplies, crops if Queensland’s big wet drags on

Residents of Central Queensland’s isolated mining towns have expressed a mix of calm and trepidation in the face of the weekend’s massive rain event.

Residents of Central Queensland’s isolated mining towns have expressed a mix of calm and trepidation in the face of the weekend’s massive rain event.

The small mining town of Dysart is close to being cut-off due to flooding and resident GP Dr Sunday Adebiyi expressed concern about the supply of medicines.

“For now we are still OK, but we don’t know what will happen if it goes on for the rest of this week,” he said.

“We will still be able to practise (medicine) but the problem is if the pharmacy can’t get its supplies, then it is going to be very difficult.

“Already we are short on a lot of medications which due to one reason or the other has been a bit of a problem even before the rain started.”

Dr Sunday Adebiyi of Dysart Medical Centre.

The Queensland Traffic map showed that at 4pm Sunday the road out of Dysart west to Clermont and east to Middlemount was cut-off, but the north and south beef road links to Moranbah and Dingo were still open.

Vegetable and fruit seller Vern Russell was not worried about supplies but said the supermarket had run out of break. She said the supermarket had enough produce to get everyone through to Thursday.

“I have been here for 33 years and it (supplies) always gets through sooner or later,” she said.

“In that time I have been here it has only ever been completely cut off once and they dropped in bread and milk with a helicopter. That is a long time ago now.”

Helicopter pilot James Pleaotz took shots of transformed cattle country on Sunday while he was checking and moving cattle in flood waters of the Belyando and Sutter Rivers. Picture: Contributed

Clermont was cut off across Friday and Saturday but the Gregory Highway to Emerald, a crucial supply route for the town, was open again Sunday.

Meanwhile, the rain event is a boon for the region’s cattle graziers but presents a more complicated picture for sugar and horticulture growers.

Bowen Gumlu Growers Association CEO Ry Collins said the rain would resupply the dams and aquifers farmers counted on but could lead to soil and infrastructure damage if it went on for too long.

“It is a double-edged sword,” he said.

“If you get too much water, or too much of a deluge on the farms themselves, at this time of year because there are no crops there, it is essentially bare soil.

“So if you get too much rain, it has a tendency to wash that topsoil away and that goes into the creeks and rivers and out into the ocean.

“That is not a good thing either because the money that growers spend on improving their soils is lost.”

Floodwaters of the Belyando and Sutter rivers, taken by helicopter pilot James Pleaotz on Sunday.

He said mango growers had cut their harvest season short due to the rain but only by a week or so.

“More due to market factors, we’re coming to our end of season for mangoes anyway,” he said.

The rain has had already hit Mackay’s sugar industry.

The wet weather has ended the supply of cane to Mackay Sugar’s Racecourse, Farleigh and Marian mills and Mackay Canegrowers estimates standover, or unharvested cane, across Mackay, will come in at 370,000 tonnes.

Spokesperson from the Rocklea Markets in Brisbane, Luke Leeson, said a close eye was being kept on the situation in the north, with produce disruptions expected in the coming weeks that may result in shortages or increased costs to end-season-fruits.

“Weather is always on our radar and it will have an impact. Bowen is coming toward the end of its season at the moment, especially for stone fruits, so there is going to be less and less coming out of there for the next few months anyway,” Mr Leeson said.

“There will undoubtedly be some impact but until the weather hits it is hard to say how widespread those impacts will be.”

The Bruce Highway at Goorganga Plains, south of Proserpine on Sunday. Picture: Contributed

Meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology, Felim Hannify said while houses and businesses were not yet reporting widespread flooding, those living in the affected areas should remain on high alert over the next two days, with falls of 200mm predicted.

“Given the slowness of the system there is certainly a risk for the Riverine to flood and also flash flooding as the conditions continue to impact the rivers,” Mr Hannify said.

“We are talking rainfall totals of 100 to 180mm in a six-hour period, some areas may even see falls of up to 200mm a six-hour period and this will likely peak on Monday.”

Mr Hannify said the highest totals were expected in the Clarke Range and Bowen, with the extreme conditions expected to move further north from Wednesday.

“It’s going to be a very active period over parts of northern Queensland, particularly parts up along the central coast and around the Bowen area,” Mr Hannify said.

“There has been heavy to localised intense rainfall over this particular stretch of the coast and the adjacent inland areas today (Sunday) and it will continue into the early parts of the coming week too.

“After Monday and Tuesday it will eventually move back north, where the heavy rainfall risk transfers back to northern Queensland for the second half of the week,” he said.

Mr Hannify said residents should expect significant disruptions on roads as the rivers continue to rise, adding the knock-on effects of the rain will continue once the heaviest falls subside.

“Once the weather subsides in the central areas, northern parts of the state, which are already pretty wet from the monsoon falls over the past weeks, will need to brace for more heavy falls,” Mr Hannify said.

Originally published as Concerns for supplies, crops if Queensland’s big wet drags on