Outback Qld flooding: Thargomindah hit with worst flooding in 50 years

A Thargomindah local says ‘resilience is built into the spirit of the town’ as residents look to recover in the wake of unprecedented destruction caused by record-breaking flooding.

Residents of a western Queensland town say they are “trying to keep morale high” as flood levels reached a record breaking 7.53m on Wednesday.

The outback town of Thargomindah, 1100km west of Brisbane, has been completely inundated with water after the levees broke early Tuesday morning, with most residents spending the night sleeping in their cars at the airport.

The flood impacting area across the South West has now grown to double the size of Victoria.

Thargomindah locals say they have never seen flooding like this.

Thargomindah local Daniel Roy captured breathtaking drone footage of the flood and said he had never seen destruction to this scale.

“I’m a Gold Coast boy and my fiance and I have been here six years and experienced the 2020 floods, but I’ve never seen anything like this, it is a shock, seeing that amount of water is insane,” he said.

“It has broken every record and it passed the 1975 floods by 0.8m.”

Mr Roy said some residents had been evacuated to nearby Charleville while others had chosen to stay and stick it out.

“When the levees broke early yesterday (Tuesday) morning it pushed a tonne of water through which has increased the number houses inundated,” he said.

“What I’m seeing on the drone now is the water is starting to get to the hold point and we think we are on or close to its peak at 7.53m, (Tuesday) it was 7.5m and held there for a few hours which is what we expect with these river feeds.

“We are doing voluntary evacuations at the moment out to Charleville or further off and those who need to get away from the difficulties happening at the moment.

“We have the SES, QPS and swiftwater rescue in town going out into flood water and getting much needed equipment, we also have medicine from Charleville pharmacy being flown out and food sources and supplies coming through.

“At this stage we are just waiting and seeing.”

Flood levels in Thargomindah reached 7.53 metres on Wednesday.

Mr Roy said despite everything that was happening, residents remained in good spirits.

“It is comforting being in a community that comes together, we are trying our hardest to keep up the morale and push through,” he said.

“It is going to get take a fair few months to recover from this, a lot of people have lost everything, our house in inundated but at the same time there are other that are worse off.

“We are a hard bunch, we have a lot of resilience because of where we are and being so isolated it is built into the town spirit, even though it is not the situation we want to be in the community spirit is intact, it is a scary time but we are doing our best and holding together.”

Thargomindah has been inundated with flood water

Bulloo Shire deputy mayor Glyn (Dogga) Dare agreed but said they had a long road ahead.

“There are about 90 houses that have water through them, the water has gone through the motel hotel, our brand new shop has had 15cm go through, same with Toyota (dealership),” he said.

“It will be another three or four days before people can get into their houses, they’re f--ked, people are stressed, we’ve got about 30 Variety people coming out within a week to start cleaning the houses using dry blowers.

“I called a guy from the Endeavour Rally Foundation and he will try to mobilise a few guys, people have been really good with helping and a lot more people will turn up when they get to town.

“It is a matter of getting people out to do it but we can’t accommodate many people because we are struggling to feed the people in town, after about a week we will be able to read the play a bit better and open the town up, but in a weeks’ time the river may still be impassable.

“Everyone is pretty buggered, they need people to give them a break, the same people have been doing the work for the last week.”

Livestock have been impacted by floods which have devastated South West Queensland

Mr Dare said following the devastation they would need the help of tourists to get back on their feet.

“Once the water gets back into banks it will go down pretty well, but it will take a real good week for it,” he said.

“We are hoping every bitumen road will be open in three weeks and businesses will also start to reopen by then.

“I think we will have enough people for the clean-up but how people can really help in the long run is by coming to the outback and spending money, businesses will need a big cash injection to get back on their feet.

“We will open it as quick as we can and we are going to need tourists back.”

Thargomindah locals say they will need the help of tourist to get back on their feet

Mr Roy echoed this.

“After all the clean up we are hoping we will get that tourism push back, we are a tourism town that’s our bread and butter,” he said.

“We really want people to come and see the outback, we don’t what this event to put people off coming … plus it will be very green”