Latest on Ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper: Homes inundated with water
Authorities have confirmed a person’s body has been found inside a property after the Far North was hit with a one-in-one-hundred-year rain event. LATEST UPDATES.
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Authorities have confirmed a person’s body has been found after Far North Queensland was lashed with severe flooding as a result of Ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper.
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.
“Police will prepare a report for the coroner after a man was located deceased at Holloways Beach last night. Initial investigations indicate his death is non-suspicious,” a QPS spokeswoman said.
“At this early stage of investigations it appears it is not flood related.”
It comes after Premier Steven Miles this morning described the Far North Queensland floods as “next level” and has assured inundated residents that “every single resource available” was being deployed to the region.
“We have heroes on the ground who have been out all night,” the Premier said.
“We deployed literally every boat we could get our hands on in Cairns, to evacuate those who couldn’t safely evacuate themselves … and more help is on the way.”
“The army and the navy have been providing all of the support they can right now and are planning what additional support they can provide.”
Additional resources had been deployed to Townsville at this stage, he said, and we're now waiting to gain access to the flood-stricken region.
Emergency crews were now highly concerned for the communities of Wujal Wujal and Degarra north of Cape Tribulation, with a severe weather warning in place for areas around Port Douglas, Daintree, Wujal Wujal, Cooktown and Hope Vale.
The current forecast includes up to 600mm of rainfall across these areas.
While two groups of people who were earlier in the day stranded on rooftops in the Wujal Wujal community were now safe, plans were underway to evacuate the entire community.
“The whole of Wujal Wujal is to be evacuated ahead of considerable rainfall forecasts – they will be evacuated to Cooktown,” the Premier said.
He reminded Cairns residents that conserving water was critical as water supplied across the region were running extremely low.
Police commissioner Katarina Carroll labelled the flood event as “absolutely devastating”.
“Last night we had an extraordinarily challenging evening,” she said.
More than 300 people were rescued across Machans Beach, Holloways Beach and Yorkeys Knob overnight, she said.
At this stage, no deaths or serious injuries have been recorded.
While Cairns is no longer part of the current severe weather warning, showers are still forecast for the rest of the day but won’t be as widespread as rain over the past 24 hours.
A major flood warning remains for the Barron River after peaking at 4.4m yesterday.
The Daintree River peaked at 15m according to the Bureau od Meteorology, smashing the former record of 12.6m.
About 14,000 Ergon Energy customers are still without power across the flood zone, with the supplier unable to put a time frame on restoration.
8am Monday: Flood emergency: Patients stranded, defence on standby after 2m of rain
Homes have been inundated with water, livestock swept away, planes submerged and hundreds of rescues have been carried out across Far North Queensland as the region endures its worst flooding in five decades.
Weather records and river levels 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.
Overnight, nine staff and patients of a Far North Queensland health clinic were forced to seek refuge on the roof of the facility after the banks of the Bloomfield River burst.
Floodwaters in the Cape York community of Wujal Wujal have left a number of homes underwater, with five people stranded on the roofs of their properties, as well as the Wujal Wujal Primary Health Clinic.
Photos shared by Cape York Weekly show a number of clinic staff and patients also seeking refuge on the roof of a flooded ambulance.
Anthony Gibson, who spoke to Cape York Weekly, said his grandson who is about 10 years old had been in the care of the clinic for the past 24 hours following an operation on his spinal cord.
Early on Monday morning, authorities said they were having trouble accessing the area to offer assistance, but Queensland Police State Disaster Co-ordinator Shane Chelepy said the group had since been evacuated.
Premier Steven Miles said there was still great concern about the community of Wujal Wujal and Degarra.
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.
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.”
Severe flood levels have decimated the region in the wake of ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper, with rainfalls closing in on 2m in river catchments.
A severe weather warning for heavy, locally intense rainfall remains in place for the region, with intense rainfall expected to continue.
The Bureau of Meteorology says that since 9am on Sunday, rainfall totals of up to 820mm have ben 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 Daintree River broke its 2019 floodwater record of 12.6 metres early on Monday morning after it peaked at 14.8 metres at 4am.
The Barron River, north of Cairns, also broke it’s 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.
Mr Miles said he has spoken to people who have lived in Cairns their entire life, who told him they have “never seen anything like this”.
“While we were expecting very heavy rainfall in the wake of the cyclone, this is next level” he said.
“We need people to get themselves to evacuation centres if they’re concerned, if they can’t do so safely they need to contact us and we will get out crews to them as soon as we can.”
The SES received more than 1000 requests for help in the past 24 hours, while the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service swiftwater teams responded to more than 370 call-outs.
Senior Meteorologist Laura Boekel said there was still more rain to come for at least the next 24 hours.
“We’re not seeing an easing trend in that (rainfall), we’re still seeing large amounts of rainfall today into catchments that have seen big totals over the past seven days,” Ms Boekel said.
“We are already seeing flash flooding in that North Queensland area and that is likely to continue at least today and into this evening, and into tomorrow.
“Currently there is a small area around Cairns where we are seeing a very high risk of flash flooding and we have a specific weather warning and emergency broadcasting out.
“The most likely scenario is that we will see the easing (rainfall) trend starting around Tuesday, we’re not looking at an immediate easing of this rainfall.
“In terms of flooding, these catchments in the tropics can rise and fall quite rapidly, however, there will be downstream effects once the rain has stopped falling.
“With these areas in the tropics, we do see over a couple of days the catchments start to fall once that rain stops, but it will vary catchment to catchment.”
Colin Bendall, Sunwater’s general manager of operations, said he expected Tinaroo Dam to start spilling between 3pm and 4pm on Sunday.
“We have seen quite large inflows into Tinaroo Dam since Friday,” Mr Bendall said.
“About 300mm has been recorded in the catchment since Friday, with 180mm observed overnight and river levels rising upstream of the dam.
“Although the outflows from Tinaroo are not forecast to be significant, we are closely monitoring the situation, given the widespread flooding already occurring downstream of the dam.”
As of Sunday afternoon, the Cairns region was down to 30 hours of water supply as severe weather has prevented council crews from clearing blockages at critical infrastructure, mayor Terry James said.
“Our treatment plants are still offline. We are asking people to conserve water in any way they can. You can collect rainwater and use it to flush toilets, for example,” Mr James said.
“We’re approaching critical levels of treated water.”
Mr Miles has offered the state government’s assistance to Far North councils, according to two mayors.
Cassowary Coast mayor Mark Nolan said water supply in his LGA had been impeded.
“We’ve just finished a call with the premier. The state government is looking to step in with resources and staff,” Mr Nolan said.
BOM senior meteorologist Dean Narramore said the torrential rain was a result of a convergence zone sitting “right over Cairns, and just to the north of Cairns”, creating a concentrated area of heavy rainfall.
Mr Narramore said the rain should begin easing on Monday, though showers and storms could still bring another 50-100mm.
“We just really need the remnants of ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper to hurry up and go into the gulf, and get rid of that convergence on the north tropical coast,” Mr Narramore said.
“We should finally start to see an easing (on Monday).”
The Young Animal Protection Society shelter in Smithfield is underwater but community members and volunteers have managed to get all the animals to safety before floodwaters arrived.
“By the time we were bringing dogs out, we were all running through almost knee-high waters and the kennels were underwater,” shelter supervisor Kelly Brown told media.
They shared a post on social media asking community members to help house the dogs during the emergency situation and were overwhelmed by the effort to help.
Black Mountain recorded almost 1.5m of rain in the five days to 9am Sunday.
Myola has had 1437mm, Mona Mona 1296mm, Yandil 1275mm, Daintree Village 1176mm, Cairns Airport 685mm, Cairns Racecourse 600mm, Innisfail has recorded 490mm – most of which fell on Saturday and then Sunday morning, while Mareeba has had 597mm across the same five-day period.
“Unfortunately there’s a lot more rain to come today though,” Mr Narramore said.
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Originally published as Latest on Ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper: Homes inundated with water
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