St George faces sea of trouble as inland tide rises

OUR journey begins in the Gulf country of northwest Queensland, where the land gives way to an inland sea that stretches to the horizon.

Balonne River

OUR journey begins in the Gulf country of northwest Queensland, where the brown land gives way to an inland sea that stretches to the horizon.

Here and there a pocket of life emerges from the expanse of shimmering floodwater: a green-topped rise, dotted with skinny cattle; the galvanised roof of a homestead glittering in the sun; people waving from the main street of Burketown, 2200km north of Brisbane, which has been cut off since the monsoon closed in a fortnight ago.

In some places, rain poured from the sky at 150mm an hour, saturating the ground, filling streams in a flash and transforming lazily flowing rivers into roaring torrents that burst their banks and spread across vast flood plains.

Murrandoo Yanner, the indigenous activist, sees the timeless rhythms of the northern wet all around him. "The ants are moving inside and the birds are coming into land from the tiny island bars in the deep sea where they usually live," he said from Burketown yesterday. "The big wet or cyclone is yet to come."

Our tour of the flood zone tracks the monsoon's southeasterly drift, across the flat downs country around Richmond, 490km west of Townsville. John Wharton's 20,000ha cattle run is cut off by the Flinders River and the road to Croydon is out.

"The dark clouds rolled in early this morning, from the northwest straight out of the Gulf -- they looked very threatening but they've cleared now," a relieved Mr Wharton said.

Russ Glindemann had water through his supermarket at Alpha, in the Galilee coal basin of Queensland's central west, after the local creek peaked at 8.5m.

He counted himself lucky to be open for business yesterday. "It's almost dried out this morning so we're putting the stock back to where it lives," he said.

The path of the flood is punctuated by relief and heartbreak. In Charleville, 740km northwest of Brisbane, the mighty Warrego River was held back by levee banks that had water lapping at their top. "The town's got an emergency siren, so we've been lying awake the past week waiting for it to go off," said local motel operator Linda Edwards. "I think we'll all sleep very well tonight."

In Mitchell, an hour's drive east on the Warrego Highway, the Maranoa swamped dozens of homes. Elizabeth Crow was helping to hose 30cm of reeking mud out of the local pharmacy yesterday. "You can see a light at the end of the tunnel, but there's a lot of cleaning up to do before we get there," she said.

In Roma, 515km northwest of Brisbane, a "mud army" of 400 volunteers also got their hands dirty after Bungil Creek erupted for the third time in three years and flooded 180 properties, severely damaging nine of them.

That was far from the worst of it. Jane Sheahan drove into fast-flowing water on Northern Road with her son, Darcy. She was swept away to her death, after making a despairing plea to a rescuer to save the boy first.

Mercifully, he did, but the community was still coming to terms yesterday with losing Ms Sheahan, a local blue nurse. Roma Mayor Rob Loughnan described her death as "the real low point".

Bungil Creek flows into the Balonne River, and that's part of the problem for St George, in the cotton country near the NSW border, 500km due west of Brisbane.

The other part of the problem is the Maranoa, which meets the Balonne just above St George, increasing the town's vulnerability to flooding. In March 2010, the Balonne hit a record 13.5m and inundated 25 homes in the low-lying part of town.

Last night, it was approaching a terrifying new high of 14m, and threatening to overwhelm hastily reinforced levees.

Most of the town's 3000 residents had fled, on the order of police. "What I'm looking at is something that would fill Sydney Harbour every two days," said Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce, describing the view from his riverside home in St George.

"There is something that sounds a little bit like the sea but it is not actually the sea.

"It's a river and it is just outside the back door."

If the river reaches 15.3m, Senator Joyce's house will go under, along with the rest of the town and most of the bumper cotton crop around it.

Once past St George, the water coursing down the Balonne will spread across a flood plain, putting Dirranbandi in the firing line.

The township of 440, 80km southwest of St George, is protected by a 5.5m levee. That leaves little margin for error with the Balonne Minor River due to peak at 5.4m by Friday.

Local butcher Greg Stephens, having run out of mince and sausages as people stocked up, was yesterday trying to get in more stock to keep the town going as it faces its third flood in quick succession.

"I've had a gutful of it," he said. "We've been cut off by road since Saturday and we expect it to be another four or six weeks."

ADDITIONAL REPORTING: ANDREW FRASER, ROSANNE BARRETT