Qld weather: FNQ flooding, rescues, 2m rain falls in wake of ex-tropical cyclone Jasper
Helicopters attempting to rescue sick and vulnerable residents stranded in floodwaters in Far North Queensland have been turned back after encountering a wall of water as the deluge continues. One person is unaccounted for.
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Helicopters attempting to rescue sick and vulnerable residents stranded in flooded Wujal Wujal in Far North Queensland have been turned back after encountering a wall of water as the deluge continues. One person is unaccounted for.
A QPS spokeswoman said a search and rescue operation was launched on Monday afternoon after an 85-year-old man was reported missing at Degarra.
“Initial investigations indicate the local man last made contact with friends at approximately 10pm last night and has not been seen or heard from since,” she said.
“Local police have commenced a search and rescue operation and urge anyone with information regarding his whereabouts to contact police.”
It came as Premier Steven Miles said the scale of the disaster could not have been predicted by the Bureau of Meteorology’s weather tracking systems.
A Wujal Wujal council spokeswoman said food supplies were almost gone and at least five sick people were in dire need of medical attention in the indigenous community that has been ravaged by floodwaters.
Several people were stranded on rooftops awaiting rescue.
There were hopes that helicopters would begin evacuating the population of about 400 people on Monday afternoon, however they were forced to retreat as the heavy downpour continued.
She said they had hoped to evacuate the entire community to Cooktown and Cairns via helicopter.
“But because of the weather, they just can’t get in,” she said.
“They encountered a wall of water at Bloomfield and had to turn around.
“We’ve got some really sick people and we need to get them out of the community.
“People are wanting to get out, there’s no power, no sewerage, no food.
“Some people have lost everything.”
Council spokeswoman Kylie said she alone had 20 people staying at her home, with many people left homeless by floodwaters.
“But that’s just what everyone is doing,” she said.
“We need to get people out of here.”
Wujal Wujal residents of the town have also been warned of multiple crocodile sightings in the floodwaters, including areas where children have been spotted swimming and playing nearby.
State Disaster Co-ordinator Deputy Police Commissioner Shane Chelepy said on Monday afternoon the main areas of concern in the Far North were Wujal Wujal and Degarra.
He said everyone in Wujal Wujal would be evacuated to Cooktown on Wednesday morning.
One elder said the rain had not stopped for six days and six nights, starting as then tropical cyclone Jasper crossed the coast last week.
The town’s police station, the medical clinic and about 30 homes were underwater.
“Our community has been devastated,” Kylie said.
“We’re just taking this minute by minute.”
Meanwhile, 15 people had been rescued from a rooftop in Cooktown, and three adults and two children from a roof in Mount Malloy.
“Thank you to a local member with a mustering chopper that Cooktown Police were able to engage and did an incredible effort in rescuing those people in Cooktown,” Mr Chelepy said.
Another rescue helicopter would be flying over the Daintree area on Tuesday afternoon.
Mr Miles said incredible acts of bravery had occurred on Monday as first responders and good samaritans rescued those trapped by floodwaters.
“Queenslanders lending a hand, mate for mate,” he said.
“We’ve had reports of people using mustering choppers and fishing boats to rescue strangers or people they know around town.”
Mr Miles said continued rainfall had meant helicopters were not able to conduct rescues, and those in Wujal Wujal would have to wait another night before being evacuated.
“An attempt was made to aerial evacuate Wujal Wujal today but unfortunately the rain and cloud is still too strong,” he said.
“Another attempt is now planned for 8am tomorrow.”
Asked if the weather bureau had given enough warning to residents of Cairns and surrounding areas ahead of the record-breaking rain and flooding event, Mr Miles said: “I think the bureau gave all the notice and warning they could based on the information that was available to them.
“It couldn’t be predicted based on their observations and systems just how much rain would fall overnight.
“They do the best that they can.”
Mr Miles said the scale of the devastating weather event was unprecedented.
“It was anticipated that the rainfall would track the cyclone across the Cape – that’s not what we’ve seen,” Mr Miles said.
“We’ve seen the rainfall intensely concentrated in Cairns.
“There’s a lot about this weather event that is unusual and has never been seen before.
“There’ll probably be at some point in the future where we can talk about what’s driving those kinds of changes in weather patterns.”
But he also insisted the influences of climate change on devastating weather was a discussion for another day as the government focused on addressing the urgent needs of those in the Far North.
Doctors have also urgently warned people in flood zones to make sure they are wearing boots and gloves before attempting clean-up efforts with fears potentially deadly viruses could claim lives.
AMA Queensland president Dr Maria Boulton has sounded the alarm over fears residents could be at risk of catching the rare tropical disease Melioidosis or tetanus.
The bacteria causing Melioidosis are commonly found in soil and water in northern Australia and people who become unwell often get a lung infection.
If not treated quickly, the infection can spread to other areas of the body causing severe illness including sepsis and death.
Anyone who develops a fever following contact with floodwaters or a wound that becomes red or sore should consult their doctor as soon as possible.
Weather bureau senior meteorologist Laura Boekel said the bureau was no longer predicting intense rainfall and thunderstorm warnings would be issued when required on Tuesday evening if significant rainfall was forecast.
“While that widespread, very intense rainfall is moving on, there is still shower and storm activity in the area,” she said.
Dozens of records have been broken during the flood event.
Cairns broke a nearly 60-year long record when it received 268.4mm on Sunday. The city had not seen a daily figure that size since 1964.
Mossman and Port Douglas both received 429mm in one day, breaking daily December records made in 2007.
Cooktown broke a 116 year rain record, after recording 339.8mm on December 12, which broke a record set in 1907.
The Daintree River, peaked just below 15m, breaking a previous 2019 record of 12.6m.
Ms Boekel said residents needed to keep and eye on warnings, with further rain likely to prompt more flooding.
Brigadier Richard Peace said the Australian Defence Force was preparing to provide additional support if the situation improved and “we get better weather and a better understanding of what’s happening on the ground”.
The state’s peak medical group said it was concerned North Queenslanders could be left without access to medical services with some already forced to close their doors with no access to power of phone lines.
AMA Queensland President Dr Maria Boulton said her Far North Queensland colleagues were working in challenging conditions they are currently experiencing.
“Others have said that while they are operating for now, there is nothing normal about how they are managing to do so,” she said.
“Circumstances are very difficult and most are relying on a generator for power.
She said health services across the region were also dealing with chronic staff shortage
“Doctors are also working extremely long hours to keep treating those patients who can access them,” Dr Boulton said.
“Many people have had to evacuate after their homes flooded, and this has included doctors, leaving minimal medical staff who are actually able to come to work.”
While the full extent of damage is still not realised, GPs from around the state are poised ready to jump in and help their flood-affected colleagues service their patients via telehealth.
“We have contacted the Health Minister and Chief Health Officer requesting urgent support to help medical practices get back on their feet,” Dr Boulton said.
“This may include power generators and phone connectivity. It is essential people continue to have access to medical services.”
Dr Boulton also wanted to remind people that have lost their medications in floodwaters that they are able to get a small amount of their medicine from pharmacies without a script.
All North Queensland emergency departments remain open including Cairns, Tully, Innisfail, Babinda, Atherton, Mareeba, Mossman and Ingham.
The emergency department at the Wujal Wujal Primary Health Care Centre was closed.
Energy Minister Mick de Brenni said 45 communities were affected by power outages, which could take several days to restore.
“We will now see a longer period of restoration which could take several additional days,” he said.
“There are hundreds of power company crews ready and waiting for those waters to subside.”
The Barron Gorge Hydroelectric Power Station has taken on significant damage and would take several months to repair, but Mr de Brenni said the system had adequate supply to meet supply.
Repairs to the Bruce Highway would be prioritised.
Water has receded from Cairns Airport and debris cleared, with an inspection schedule for Wednesday morning to determine if the airport would reopen.
Mr Chelepy said some people were expected to remain in Wujal Wujal, and will assist with recovery and clean-up efforts.
More than 2m of rain has fallen in some parts of Far North Queenslands since then tropical cyclone Jasper crossed the coast between Wujal Wujal and Port Douglas on Wednesday.
Some parts of the region have been hit with a third of their average annual rainfall in a 24-hour period.
The severe weather event has isolated whole towns, forced the closure of Cairns Airport, has caused mass evacuations across Far North Queensland and put at risk the drinking water of Cairns.
Authorities on Monday afternoon confirmed a person’s body had been found in a home in Cairns northern beaches.
The details at this stage are unclear but police are investigating whether the death is related to the flooding. It’s understood the person may have suffered a medical episode.
A QPS spokeswoman later said: “At this early stage of investigations it appears it is not flood related.”
Cairns Regional Council have warned residents to conserve water as they work to repair the water treatment plant at Crystal Cascades, with treated supplies in the reservoirs now depleted and some residents already without water.
Mayor Terry James said the water intake had been blocked by debris caused by the severe weather which had prevented water from being treated for days.
Mayor Creek’s niece and her young son were among the people trapped on the roof of the town’s hospital as floodwaters rose on Sunday night.
He said the pair, along with a nurse, doctor, the hospital boss and ambulance driver, were trapped for hours before they were rescued.
“They got a call out and next thing you know they got a shock with all the rivers coming up and quickly jumped on top of the ambulance car,” Mr Creek said.
“After the water came up past the spare tyre (on the back of the vehicle), they jumped from the ambulance roof onto the hospital roof.
“That was in the early hours of this morning.”
Mr Creek said it was now a race against time to evacuate community members by air with another high tide expected Monday afternoon.
He said helicopters were staged about half way between Cooktown and Wujal Wujal, ready to fly in to begin evacuating residents.
“We’re requesting that all the community should leave,” he said.
“Everyone is waiting for the helicopters to come and evacuate them to Cooktown or Cairns.
“No one can get in or out by road.”
Mr Creek said the high tide would bring a fresh inundation of water into the already soaked township.
“It’s accessible now while the water is down but they want to get out of there before 3pm because there’s a big tide over three metres coming and it’s back to flooding again.”
Mr Creek said the people rescued from roofs had been “very lucky”.
He was trapped in Cairns awaiting the birth of his second child and said it had been difficult not being with his community and waiting for updates.
“I have family keeping in touch,” he said.
“They said it was pretty scary. No one could see what was happening because it was dark.
“It is stressful because I can’t do much from down there, I’d like to be with my community.”
Premier Steven Miles on Monday morning described the rainfall as “next level” revealing “every single resource is being allocated” to the state’s far north.
Weather records and river level records have already been smashed, with major flood warnings and a general severe weather alert still in place, with clean water supplies reportedly down to just 30 hours.
BOM reports a trough associated with Jasper produced more than 500mm of rain in the 24 hours to 9am Monday in the Daintree, Mossman, and Barron catchments.
The Barron catchment on average receives 1442mm per year, with 500mm equating to about four months worth of rain in a 24-hour period,
The Mossman catchment gets 2109mm in the same time, according to Queensland government data.
Nine people were forced onto the roof of the Wujal Wujal hospital as water inundated the town, with emergency services rescuing them overnight.
There are seven people still sitting on the roofs of five houses in Dagarra, just north of Wujal Wujal, and two people on a roof in Bloomfield.
Mr Chelepy critical support”, including three rescue helicopters, will be deployed to Cairns today.
“To this point in time we have not been able to put aerial resources in the air … the conditions in and around Cairns and north of Cairns, Wujal Wujal, have been very hard to fly in … we have had significant rainfall and low cloud,” he said.
“We’re doing everything we can to get emergency services to support these people,” Mr Chelepy said.
Mr Chelepy said heavy lift capabilities will be made available today by the Defence Force to begin evacuations in Wujal Wujal.
An Australian Defence Force spokesman on Monday afternoon confirmed two 47F Chinooks and two AW-139 helicopters will be deployed from Townsville to assist emergency services.
“Following a request from QFES, via the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Defence will work with Queensland emergency authorities to assist QFES to transport up to 150 emergency service personnel plus equipment to Cairns,” he said,
“And provide emergency rotary wing support in the Cairns region to provide immediate safety of life assistance to isolated residents as directed by emergency authorities.
“This will include deploying two Australian Army CH-47F Chinooks and two AW-139 helicopters from Townsville, as soon as possible, to support Queensland emergency authorities.”
The spokesman said personnel from HMAS Cairns on Sunday provided local emergency small boat assistance with QFES personnel to rescue Cairns residents.
Far Northerners with boats toiled overnight alongside emergency services rescuing locals from their homes as floodwaters inundated their homes.
One local is said to have rescued upwards of 60 people using his boat to ferry them out, while Boe Willcox zipped around on a jetski.
“So far this morning, my first load was a mum, a one-year-old, and a nine-year-old,” Mr Willox said.
“I’ve probably ferried a dozen people so far in and out.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed on Monday morning, defence personnel are on standby to assist with the recovery effort.
“Of course many of those communities will be very difficult to get to, which is why the ADF assets will be important in reaching those people in those communities,” he told media.
“People have been devastated and of course it’s a very dangerous situation for many who are in very unprecedented floodwaters.
“The important thing at this point in time is to ensure that people are kept safe and that is a real concern.
“A number of people are isolated and have needed rescuing from their terrible circumstances. So just our thoughts go to all people in those communities at this at this very difficult time.”
Emergency services personnel have been “moved around” continually over the past 48 hours, with Mr Chelepy saying staff were tired.
“They’ve been working all night, they’ve been working for days now,” he said.
“That’s why we’re bringing those additional emergency services in from Townsville.”
All North Queensland emergency departments remain open including Cairns, Tully, Innisfail, Babinda, Atherton, Mareeba, Mossman and Ingham.
The emergency department at the Wujal Wujal Primary Health Care Centre is closed after the town was evacuated due to flood waters.
Ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper is moving west slowly, with heavy rainfall forecast to continue into Monday night.
The Bureau of Meteorology says that since 9am on Sunday, rainfall totals of up to 820mm have been observed in the Daintree River catchment and up to 590mm over the Mossman River catchment.
More isolated rainfall figures show 654mm has fallen at Yandill from 9am on Sunday to 4am on Monday, 635mm for Myola, 586mm for Daintree Village, 357mm for Port Douglas and 305mm for Cairns Airport.
The Barron River, north of Cairns, also broke a 46-year-old record of 3.8 metres as it peaked overnight at 4.4 metres, flooding the runway at Cairns Airport, submerging aircraft and inundating surrounding suburbs.
The airport posted an update at 4pm Monday saying water had been pumped out, the runway had been cleared and the aerodrome was serviceable for aircraft movements.
“Airlines will now assess their own flight operations and procedures to determine when they can recommence services at Cairns Airport,” the update said.
“Please contact your airline directly for information about specific flights, particularly if you have a service booked tomorrow (Tuesday).”
“We remain very concerned about the communities of Wujal Wujal and Degarra,” Mr Miles said.
He said authorities were working to evacuate the area from Wujal Wujal to Cooktown.
The state has pulled “every single boat they could find” to conduct the almost 300 rescues made overnight in and around Cairns.
“So everyone from the yacht club to the navy, to SES, to even the surf lifesavers,” Mr Miles said.
Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll said about 300 people had to be rescued on Sunday night.
“Thankfully we have not seen any deaths or serious injuries as a result of this event,” she said.
Asked whether more alerts should have been issued to Far North Queensland residents, Ms Carroll said: “It was unexpected the volume of rain that came yesterday”.
Ms Carroll said yesterday’s brief was changing “every 15 minutes” over an “extraordinarily large area”.
Speaking about yesterday’s weather system, Ms Carroll said “it was moving at a pace that we have not seen before which was the challenge”.
Mr Chelepy said there were “isolated communities” from “Cooktown through to Innisfail”.
Senior Meteorologist Laura Boekel said major flooding continued for the Daintree River which has peaked at 15 metres.
Ms Boekel said the previous record for the Daintree River was 12.6 metres.
River levels are peaking at levels last seen in 1977, with Ms Boekel confirming the Bureau was still checking data to see which areas had broken rainfall records.
Severe flood levels have decimated the region in the wake of ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper, with rainfalls closing in on 2m in river catchments.
Already by 8.45am on Monday morning, Edmonton’s Boe Willcox had ferried a dozen people in and out of Holloways Beach on the back of his jetski, as the Far North wakes to a disaster zone. He was not alone.
Far Northerners with boats toiled overnight alongside emergency services, and will continue to do so today, rescuing people from flooded homes on Cairns’ northern beaches.
He was not alone.
Far Northerners with boats toiled overnight alongside emergency services, and will continue to do so today, rescuing people from flooded homes on Cairns’ northern beaches.
Department of Transport and Main Roads director-general Sally Stannard said all major state-controlled roads in Far North Queensland are closed “due to flooding or land slips”.
Ms Stannard said some roads in FNQ could take “months” to repair.
While a spokesman for Ergon Energy said about 14,000 homes were without power at 6am on Monday.
An Ergon spokeswoman on Monday said responders had so far only attended life threatening emergencies as the flood event developed, with some houses without power since Ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper’s passing on Wednesday.
Of the roughly 12,000 households and businesses affected by outages on Monday, half were located in the Cairns region.
The Queensland Disaster Management Committee met on Sunday to organise more personnel to be sent to the flood emergency.
“We will prioritise that personnel to go in and the first, they will go in today and there will be a continual rotation,” Mr Chelepy said.
Swift water rescue technicians and additional QFES and QPS staff sent to assist cyclone recovery efforts last week were meant to be rotated over the weekend but are yet to be relieved.
“Because they’re in there they’re continuing to work and I take my hat off to them,” Mr Chelepy said.
The Queensland Disaster Management Committee will meet with mayors of affected regions on Monday afternoon.
Mossman resident Jack Cobb said the community was in disbelief after floodwaters tore through town, sending bins, tyres and gas bottles floating down the main street and inundating dozens of homes and leaving the town without water or electricity.
“It’s been such a big shock for everyone,” he said.
“No one remembers ever seeing it like this.”
He said the waters had now receded to reveal the heartbreak left behind, including inside his dad’s house where nothing could be salvaged.
Mr Cobb said there would be a big clean-up ahead.
“I think everyone is so strong here as a community, everyone will lend a hand and look after each other,” he said.
Mayarna Donahue was evacuated from her high set Mossman Street house on Tuesday night as Cyclone Jasper hit the coast, causing the Mossman River to break its banks.
She, along with her grandmother, siblings and a cousin, were among the dozens people evacuated from the street, wading through floodwaters to escape the rising river.
She said the endless downpour had forced the family to evacuate on Tuesday, with the water inundating the top storey of their home.
“We actually had to swim out because of how deep it was,” she said.
“Some other houses have gone completely under.
“We went back home today (Monday) to grab some stuff and there’s mud all inside.”
Ms Donahue said the family was taking refuge at the Mossman sports centre with no clue when they would be able to return home.
“It’s been a hectic week,” she said.
“The whole town was flooded, no one has ever seen it like that.
“Everyone says it’s the first time since the 70s that it’s been this bad.”
Further south, Ingham residents woke up to a surprise on Monday morning when a 2.5-metre saltwater crocodile was spotted in Palm Creek.
A known swimming spot in recent years, the creek burst its banks on Sunday evening after Ingham received around 130mm of rain in a 24-hour period.
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