‘How can I go back now?’: Remote Indigenous community ponders clean up following historic Far North floods

Grateful Wujal Wujal elders have shared their heartbreak as they come to grips with having lost their homes in the Far North’s record floods.

'We're refugees': Wujal Wujal residents Marie Shipton, Auntie Kathleen Walker, Coraleen Shipton and Uncle William Harrigan.

Auntie Kathleen Walker says she is scared to go back home.

Along with dozens of other displaced residents, the Wujal Wujal elder is living at the Cooktown disaster centre following the floods that decimated her community.

While sleeping on trundle beds on an open basketball court, the community is coming to grips with a week where hundreds of residents were evacuated following a cyclone and biblical floods that ravaged their community.

“I bought turkey and ham for Christmas dinner,” Ms Walker, who lost her home, said.

“It’s all lost. How can I go back now?

“I’m here in a strange place. I was telling my sister that I don’t know if I can go back and face my house.

“My photos of my grandfather, my mum, my uncle, my auntie, it’s all gone.”

Ms Walker said she was grateful to the Australian Defence Force and emergency services for their tireless efforts to rescue them.

“If we didn’t have the army we wouldn’t be here,” she said. “We’d be gone. We had no food for our kids.

'We're refugees': Wujal Wujal residents Marie Shipton, Auntie Kathleen Walker, Coraleen Shipton and Uncle William Harrigan.

“We’re lucky. We are strong people. We will get through this together but we need help.

“It was a bit slow but we got there.

“My house was renovated … I’m scared now to go back. I think I might move to a higher place where I can be safe.”

Uncle William Harrigan said the community had been on tenterhooks for most of December with weather forecasts frequently changing where Tropical Cyclone Jasper would make landfall.

“We didn’t have a firm idea where it was going to hit,” Mr Harrigan said.

“It’s devastating. It was a shock to see the whole community like that – we’ve never seen that in our lives.

“We’ve seen storms and whatever come up to our doorstep in previous years. I’ve lived there for 32 years … this was the big super storm that no-one ever predicted.”

The longtime resident said the flood – which has destroyed homes, roads and much of the community’s infrastructure – was hard to come to terms with.

“I’m lucky. I was situated up on the hill,” he said. “When it started on Sunday night we had rain coming but we didn’t expect it to be continuous.

“It just poured and poured and then it came on so quick.”

Originally published as ‘How can I go back now?’: Remote Indigenous community ponders clean up following historic Far North floods