Rebuilding Queensland communities `could take years'

The soldier in charge of rebuilding Queensland's flood-ravaged communities and industries has warned that the job will take years.

The soldier in charge of rebuilding Queensland's flood-ravaged communities and industries has warned that the job will take years.

And that is before the extent of the damage is known.

Flood Recovery Taskforce head Mick Slater said the massive relief operation could not swing into reconstruction mode until the waters receded.

That might try patience in some places such as Rockhampton, where the Fitzroy River is expected to remain in flood for days to come, while other communities such as Bundaberg and Dalby are being threatened by another round of severe flooding.

"We are hampered so much in trying to get on with the job because until the waters actually recede we don't know the extent of the damage," Major General Slater said.

Queensland Main Roads Minister Craig Wallace yesterday met federal Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese after warning that damage to highways, bridges and roads alone would top $1.5 billion.

Restoring transport links would be a priority, with Mr Wallace saying that repair work had started on the Capricorn Highway near Emerald in the state's central west, the Leichhardt Highway north of the border town of Goondiwindi and the Warrego Highway through the Darling Downs and rural heartland west of Brisbane.

Clean-up crews will also be mobilised to blitz the 26 schools affected by floods in readiness for the first day of term on January 24.

Intensive efforts were being made yesterday to shore up the key export earner of coal mining, with the Dalrymple Bay bulk loading terminal south of Mackay operating at 70 per cent capacity. Some 41 ships were waiting off the port.

General Slater, who helped direct the recovery effort after Cyclone Larry carved a path of destruction through communities south and west of Cairns in 2006, told ABC radio that this job was far bigger, more complicated and required an "integrated approach" that would take years.

He singled out the devastated town of Theodore -- the first in Queensland's history to be fully evacuated in a flood -- to illustrate the challenge. The farming town of about 500 southwest of Rockhampton was only just getting back on its feet after being flooded last March.

"They did a great job of rebuilding," General Slater said. "They finally put a crop in. They have just lost that crop. Before they can put another crop in they need to let the ground dry out, they have got a lot of restoration on their properties, they have to rebuild their irrigation channels . . . but that can't start until the roads have dried out . . . to get the heavy machinery in."

While the recovery taskforce could help flood-hit businesses in the town to reopen, the catch-22 was that no one would have money to spend until the next crop was brought in.

"So really it is a matter of staging the recovery and synchronising everything so each of those aspects of country life . . . are supporting each other," General Slater said.

General Slater said that while getting the mining industry up and running was a priority it would not take precedence.

"You can't just come up with a one-size-fits-all solution and just slap it on the economy," he said.