500+ calls for help, roads crumble, homes smashed amid Nth Qld deadly deluge
Premier David Crisafulli has received a briefing from the health minister about potential health dangers in North Queensland floodwaters, saying the region was “not out of the woods”.
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Premier David Crisafulli has received a briefing from the health minister about potential health dangers in North Queensland floodwaters, saying the region was “not out of the woods”.
Mr Crisafulli said the region had seen a break in the rain but warned the flooding risk was still apparent.
“The last few hours has been a massive reprieve,” he said Monday night.
“But looking at modelling, and the Bureau says that there is still the prospect of rain, and so we have to prepare for that.
“The best case scenario could be a minimal amount of homes inundated, that would be an amazing achievement, considering we are staring down the barrel of seeing 1700, but until we see what happens overnight, we’re not out of the woods.
“We will then turn our attention to what the rebuild looks like, regardless of what happens tonight, the rebuild will be significant.”
Mr Crisafulli said he wanted to make sure the region received the rebuild it deserved.
“I just want to make sure that what needs to be delivered, will be delivered. I’ve got a really deep affinity with this part of the world,” he said.
“I’m determined to make sure that they get the rebuild - firstly the protection - then the rebuild they deserve.
“We’ve received a briefing from the health minister as part of this ... and that is something that we’re going to be speaking quite a bit about in the next 24 hours
“So as part of the clean up, and people have to get in and roll up their sleeves, but take all precautions that you can, wear shoes, wear gloves, do everything that you can.”
He planned to spend time in the Townsville region before heading to Ingham.
“I’m in no rush to go back south, this is where our priority is,” he said.
It comes after experts warned the deadly deluge that has dumped as much as 1.2m of rain on parts of north Queensland was not over, with more rain expected and the possibility of rivers continuing to rise or remain at major flood levels until at least Tuesday.
It was also revealed on Monday that a major bridge broken apart by floodwaters north of Townsville could leave some residents cut off “for weeks”, with truck drivers carrying essential supplies forced to drive an extra 700km to reach the battered area.
The bridge, on the Bruce Highway at Ollera Creek connects Far North and North Queensland with Central Queensland and was broken apart in the wild weather on Sunday afternoon.
It is expected to take “a considerable number of weeks” to repair, Gary Mahon from the Queensland Trucking Association told ABC.
He said while drivers would do their best to get close to the affected areas with critical supplies, it was possible essentials would need to be flown in.
There have been now more than 500 calls for help in the state’s north since Saturday night, with 231 calls to the SES for help since Sunday night to Monday 3pm.
In the 24 hours to 5pm Monday the swift water rescue team have rescued seven people and has helped evacuate more than 50 people.
Rescue jobs were recorded in Kalkie in Bundaberg, Redlynch in Cairns, Basalt in Charters Towers and Cape Cleveland in Townsville.
It comes as those who had evacuated their homes in Townsville were told it was not yet safe to return.
A severe weather warning remains current after a night of torrential rain hammered communities north of Townsville, with schools out, roads cut and thousands without power across the region.
Six evacuation centres remain open, with nearly 400 people taking shelter across Townsville, Ingham and Cardwell.
The weather bureau’s Jonathan How said the Herbert River in Ingham was 0.35m below its record height of March 1967.
“We are monitoring this one very closely, and there is the potential for further rises, especially with a lot of water still coming down from upstream,” the meteorologist told ABC Radio North Queensland on Monday afternoon.
“We are also seeing some showers and storms upstream as well.”
Mr How said some areas like Tully were likely to see warnings scaled back while Townsville could still see further rainfall into the evening.
“My expectation is that (warnings) will be scaled back in some areas, particularly up towards Tully,” he said.
“But the area around Townsville does still have the potential to see some of the heavy rainfall totals.
“It does place an area of convergence right over Townsville and towards Ayr into tonight, not saying that’s going to happen, but it definitely is within the realm of possibility.
“It is likely that places like Townsville could see their warning area extended, but we do remind people to check back with the latest around five o’clock local time.
“Overall the message is that widespread, very broad, heavy to intense rainfall is now gradually easing.
“But there is still the chance of seeing some heavy falls, localized heavy falls, particularly about the Townsville area tonight.”
Meteorologist Dean Narramore earlier warned flooding could continue to impact multiple river catchments across North East Queensland for most of Monday afternoon, and that rivers could continue to rise or remain at major flood levels until at least Tuesday.
“Over the last three days, from Cardwell to Townsville, we’ve seen widespread falls in this region of 700mm to 1200mm ... in just three days. More rain is likely to come,” he said.
“We have a severe weather warning current from Tully all the way down the coast to Ayr. While we’ve seen a brief lull in the rain, isolated falls of 50mm to 100mm can continue to cause renewed river rises.”
Warning that major flood levels may remain until at least Tuesday, he said: “This low and trough system will slowly weaken as we move through Monday into Tuesday, but there’s still widespread rain and thunderstorm activity across much of Northern Queensland, particularly in our flood affected areas between Innisfail and Ayr.
“We could see isolated falls up to 300mm over the next 42 to 72 hours that could fall on those already flooded catchments. Major flood warnings are current on the Herbert, Upper Burdekin and the Ross River going around Townsville.”
Premier David Crisafulli arrived in Townsville about 4.30pm Monday with Police Minister Dan Purdie.
Mr Crisafulli met councillors at Townsville Local Disaster Management Centre before going inside for a briefing.
Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski was also in attendance.
Speaking at a media conference in Brisbane on Monday morning, before flying north, Premier David Crisafulli warned residents in Townsville’s “black zones” to stay away.
“Ultimately, that flooding situation will be impacted by the amount of rainfall, the tides and dam releases. So all of that information will be provided as it can be, but our advice to residents in the black zone at the moment is to stay out of that zone and stay safe,” he said.
Of his plan to travel north, Mr Crisafulli said it would help facilitate service delivery.
“And I want those communities to know that they matter to us … these communities form a really important part of the fabric of who we are,” he said.
Burdekin River at Sellheim peaked at 19.14 metres earlier on Monday, surpassing the previous record of 18.47m.
That previous record was set on February 4, 2011 after Cyclone Yasi made landfall near Mission Beach. River height levels for Burdekin River at Sellheim have only been recorded since 2002.
In nearby Charters Towers, there has been a disruption to water supply and residents have been told to conserve water use to emergency use only – drinking and toilets.
Nearly 30 Telstra mobile network sites and 1000 landline services are down, affecting mobile and landline services for several communities in the far north.
Telstra Regional General Manager Rachel Cliffe said network sites have back up power which are keeping many services running and teams were working to hook up generators to sites that have run flat.
“We have teams on the ground across the region doing all they can to access affected sites when it’s safe to do so and bring services back online as quickly as possible.”
Department of Transport and Main Roads North Queensland Regional Director Ross Hodgman said their major concern looking forward was the Bruce Highway at Ollera Creek Bridge, north of Townsville.
Raging flood waters swept part of the bridge away at Mutarnee, with only guard rails left standing.
All motorists are urged to find an alternative if travelling between Ingham and Townsville.
“We’ve still got a long way to go to work out exactly the condition of all the roads,” Mr Hodgman told ABC Radio North Queensland on Monday.
“Ollera Creek Bridge is a really good indicator of why you shouldn’t drive with water over the roads as you just don’t know what’s underneath.”
Mr Hodgman said the Department was keen to see communities connected as soon as possible and get those supply chains moving.
However, with the water still over the roads, it was difficult to know the full extent of damage across Townsville and surrounding areas.
“Of course, the Bruce Highway is a major concern, Ollera Creek will take time to repair ... we need to wait for the water to go down,” he said.
“We will be doing whatever we can to make those repairs as quickly as possible.”
Resources from both Cairns and Cloncurry on standby to assist, according to Mr Hodgman.
Several sections on three Queensland Rail lines remain closed on Monday with major flooding impacting the regional rail network.
Flood monitoring cameras captured several rail bridges going under, including the North Coast line at Babinda, Five Mile Creek, Harvey Creek, Meunga Creek, Murray River and St Margaret Creek.
Queensland Rail Head of Regional Scott Cornish said nine rail bridges have been inundated and gone underwater.
“We understand the importance of keeping freight moving around our state and we are working with freight partners who are affected by these weather impacts.
“Once conditions ease and floodwaters recede our crews will inspect the rail network and commence recovery works,” Mr Cornish said.
The North Coast line remains closed between Proserpine and Cairns impacting Spirit of Queensland services and the Mount Isa line remains closed between Stuart (south of Townsville) and Charters Towers impacting Inlander services.
The Kuranda Range is also closed.
As the Bureau of Meteorology on Monday morning revealed the low behind the weather chaos was weakening, Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie said his focus would be on making sure essential food services were available for the impacted region.
It comes after a Coles Ingham duty manager Marcia Glindemann accessed her store by boat on Sunday and multiple supermarkets in the North have bare shelves.
“This allowed us to donate food and essential items that were needed at the local evacuation centre,” a Coles spokesman said of Ms Glindemann’s trip to her store.
Mr Bleijie said the state government and major supermarkets had anticipated the seriousness of the event and he had been assured there was six weeks worth of food and supplies in North Queensland.
“The product was moved there before the floods hit in anticipation for what was going likely to unfold, we’ve seen situations where there has been some shops that have been closed,” he said.
He said the state had “mechanisms in place” to get food to people cut off in remote areas.
“If people are stuck and have no food or drink at their home, they just need to sing out, and we’ll ensure they get food and water, fresh water to their homes, ” he said.
Ingham residents have told of their shock at the extent of flooding.
A woman who has lived in Ingham for 35 years says the floods currently ripping through the town were the worst she had ever seen with locals saying they are “struggling to survive”.
The community is bearing the brunt of a days-long deluge that has smashed the Townsville region with as much as 1.2m of rain.
Hinchinbrook Community Support Centre chief executive Linda McClelland said in the 35 years she has lived in the area she has never seen it this bad.
“I’ve seen a lot of floods come through our district, and none parallel to this one,” she said.
“When we talk about the yardstick of floods, we talk about the 1967 big flood, this one has exceeded that one.
“So it’s caught the community, even the locals aren’t aware, because they prepared for what would be a normal flood, and this has exceeded that.”
The Herbert River at Ingham Pump Station is rising slowly at 14.94 metres, slightly below the flood level in March 1967.
A woman who moved from a house which had previously been wrecked in the 2009 floods says she was now living with no showers, toilets or power and has nowhere to go after her new property was destroyed.
Jackie Westoff, from Ingham, said she woke up on Monday morning to about 50 centimetres of water throughout her Ingham home, destroying her kitchen, dining room, lounge room and laundry was flooded after the torrential rain in Ingham on the weekend.
Ms Westoff told the Courier Mail her whole downstairs was basically gutted.
“We’ve lived here since 2009, we actually moved from a house we were renting
that got flooded in the 2009 humongous, big floods, and we thought we’d move to somewhere that was flood free,” she said.
“This is phenomenal. I’m a local girl, I’ve never seen, and even people that have been here longer on this earth than me, have never seen water in places that it’s in at the moment, it is just horrendous.
Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Matt Collopy told the media on Monday morning that North Queensland had seen extreme rainfall with totals of 600mm recorded between Innisfail and Townsville, with the highest values reaching 1.2 metres.
He said there was still 150mm to 300mm expected between Tully and Guru in the coming days with isolated falls of up to 500mm.
“We’re still seeing very significant rain. But to put these numbers in context, over the past two days, we’ve been talking about higher falls reaching up to 600,” he said.
“So we are seeing a gradual easing in both the modelling and also what we’re observing on the ground and on the radar imagery we’re seeing right now.”
He said despite the low causing the weather starting to weaken there was still a threat of dangerous and life threatening floods.
The emergency alert for Magnetic Island was cancelled on Monday afternoon.
A severe weather warning for the areas from Tully to Ayr was updated on Monday morning.
In the 24 hours to Monday morning, 655mm at Cardwell Gap, 654mm at Paluma, 525mm at Rollingstone, 501mm at Paradise Lagoon, 476mm at Halifax, 472mm at Gairloch, 455mm at Ingham Airport, 364mm at Trebonne (inland from Ingham), and 326mm at Upper Black River.
More than 1000mm of rain has already fallen between Townsville and Ingham in just two days, with more than 1700 homes in “black zones” predicted to be inundated with water on Monday.
The Ross River was expected to hit 2m on Monday afternoon.
Mr Crisafulli again urged people to stay off the roads, particularly the Bruce Highway.
It comes as dozens of people were rescued overnight on Sunday, including the driver of a B-double full of bananas near Charters Towers.
The flooding has already claimed the life of a woman who fell from an SES boat in Ingham.
The 63-year-old woman was among six people on an SES boat with two crew when it struck a tree on Rutledge St and flipped about 9.20am on Sunday.
Mr Crisafulli expressed his sorrow for the town, both on the death of a local woman on Sunday as well as the devastation.
“No doubt, it is a very sad time, and it’s a small community. It’s a tight knit community, and we wish them well,’ he said.
“We’re talking about people’s homes, their businesses. There will be immense damage to the agricultural sector there, and that is a very strong and resilient community, but this is a flood the likes of which is only seen a handful of times.”
He said more resources would be sent into the town, with the ADF on standby.
“They (ADF) agreed overnight to the use of some of their assets if required, we did preposition swift water rescue crews there because they’re not very big, and there aren’t swift water rescue crews normally there.
“I want to assure the community that more resources will follow, and particularly with the clean-up, they’re not going to be on their own,” he said.
Mr Crisafulli said dam release timelines would be looked into as part of a review into the flood response.
“They operate under the guidelines that’s been set and as part of any review, of course, that will be looked at, and the council will have to look at that, but that’s something that we’ll focus on in the future,” he said.
Cardwell had also been hammered, with an emergency warning issued just before midnight on Sunday, with authorities saying people should move to higher ground because of dangerous flooding in low-lying areas, with people affected urged to move to higher ground immediately.
There were reports to Higgins Storm Chasing of floodwaters going into the second-floor of some properties at Cardwell, and homes and businesses in Ingham completely inundated.
Ergon Energy said just shy of 11,000 properties from Cardwell to the Burdekin were without power on Monday.
“It’s been an awful few days for thousands of North Queenslanders, and our teams are doing all they can to get our communities back on track, wherever possible,” a spokesman said.
“Ingham is bearing the brunt of this disaster: there’s barely a square metre of ground that’s not under water … along with the rest of the community, our substation remains swamped and there’s no way of beginning power restoration until water levels recede.”
Ergon was forced to switch off the Cardwell substation overnight on Sunday, cutting power to about 1000 households.
“Giru substation is also offline, and we’re continuing to patrol and monitor low-lying areas around Townsville to keep everyone safe,” the spokesman said.
“We’ll try to get into Giru substation, and will know more after we’ve been able to do a thorough assessment.
Mr Crisafulli earlier reiterated the situation in north Queensland was a “really, really big flooding event”.
Townsville residents in several “black zones” – Idalia, Oonoonba, Rosslea, Hermit Park, Cluden and Railway Estate – were ordered to leave their homes by midday on Sunday as the Ross River levels rose drastically.
On Sunday afternoon an emergency alert was issued for Bluewater residents to evacuate, despite the town not being in the “black zone” areas
SEE OUR FLOOD MEGA GALLERY HERE
On Sunday night, the alert was cancelled, but police warned it was not safe for evacuated residents to return to the small town north of Townsville.
Townsville Police Detective Superintendent Graeme Paine said emergency crews were concerned with the number of people in the black zone refusing to listen to evacuation advice.
“Our messaging is that if you’re in the black zone, you need to leave,” he said.
“The modelling has predicted certain impacts; what we’re doing is in line with that.”
A total of 41 swift water rescues were conducted in the 24 hours until 3pm on Sunday.
Townsville Local Disaster Management Group co-ordinator Zach Dawes said mapping showed 1700 homes in these black zones were predicted to be inundated with water on Monday.
About 10 per cent of the community chose to stay, doorknocking in the “black zone” revealed, and Townsville LDMG chair Andrew Robinson said this was concerning.
“It is concerning because our indications are there will be inundation throughout that black zone,” he said.
“They may think they are safe at home, however they will become an island.”
Police were also investigating after thieves stole an Ergon Energy worker’s car while a crew was responding to a fallen tree on a house in Townsville.
Also on Sunday, at about 2am, crews were called to Bayswater Rd at Currajong where a large tree had fallen down and partially landed on a home.
An Ergon Energy crew was called to assist with power outages when their car was brazenly stolen by thieves.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed his sadness at the death of the woman in Ingham.
“My thoughts are with the family and the entire community at this awful time,” Mr Albanese said.
“The full support of the Queensland and federal governments is being deployed to assist with these floods.
“I have spoken with Premier Crisafulli and reiterated we will supply whatever resources are required to deal with this event.”
Deputy Leader for the Katter’s Australian Party and member for Hinchinbrook Nick Dametto said he had not seen this amount of rainfall in such a short amount of time in more than 30 years. “We’re talking flood levels that may exceed some of the greatest floods that we’ve ever seen,” he said.
Deputy Police Commissioner Shane Chelepy said the Ingham tragedy highlighted the reality of the dangers and risks of floods.
Forecasters say South East Queensland will be mostly spared from wild weather with the region likely to only see a few scattered showers on Monday and mostly dry conditions for the rest of the week.
Originally published as 500+ calls for help, roads crumble, homes smashed amid Nth Qld deadly deluge
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