North west floods devastate landholders

The history-making flood in the state’s north-west will leave more than an estimated 300,000 cattle dead and landholders destitute.

THE history-making flood in the state’s north-west will leave more than an estimated 300,000 cattle dead and landholders destitute.

Evacuations have taken place from station rooftops as floodwaters from the swollen Flinders and Leichhardt rivers sweep towards the Gulf of Carpentaria.

In some areas the expanses of water are 200 kilometres wide, giving them the appearance from the air of an inland sea.

Stories of heartbreak abound. On one property covered by floodwater south of Normanton the loyal station horses were shot rather than be left to drown.

Helicopter pilots running hay out to starving cattle on the muddy plains report having to shoot cattle too weak to stand.

Carcasses are decaying rapidly in the humid, 36 degree heat.

Dead cattle line the side of the Finders Highway Photo: John Andersen

The stench when the helicopters land out on these delivery runs is overpowering.

Flying over these thousands of square kilometres of flat north-western plains is surreal.

There is nothing but water, the surface broken only by the tips of the prickly acacia trees. Where there is no water there is mud and on it are the tracks of cattle that have wandered aimlessly.

The tracks meander and sometimes double around on themselves. Where the tracks stop the cattle lie dead or dying or they stand for as long as they can before they too, fold their legs and collapse to the ground.

Cattle caught in the water have no hope.

There are cattle, sometimes just four or five, some standing, some lying, their tracks a meandering maze of loops behind them, waiting to perish in the relentless heat.

After wandering in the mud this beast can walk no more Photo: John Andersen

The helicopters can’t reach all of them. These small mobs are dotted all over the plains.

Wherever you look, where there are cattle still standing, there will be cattle already dead.

The helicopter pilots are doing what they can, flying from first light in the morning to last light in the evening.

With all roads cut along the Flinders Highway, fuel supplies have become a major problem. But, somehow 44 gallon drums of aviation fuel keep rolling in on the backs of 4wd utes to the make-shift helicopter landing zone set up in a trucking depot yard on Julia Creek’s western edge.

Fuel is pumped into the tanks of the R-22 and R-44 helicopters and then out they go again into this endless territory of water and mud.

The stations here vary in size from around 30,000 hectares to 600 to 1000 square kilometres.

Towns along the line like Hughenden, Richmond, Maxwelton, Nelia and Julia Creek are isolated by floodwater.

The township of Maxwelton 48km west of Richmond is flooded Photo: John Andersen

The savagery of the flood and its social and economic impacts will be felt for years to come.

People are already talking about the invisible impacts on psychological health.

In many instances there are families who have been dealing with a seven year drought.

Their financial lives have been on the line every day of those seven years. In many cases they will have raked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, a lot of it spent buying feed and supplements to keep their cattle alive.

And then rain started, but it didn’t stop. Within days some had lost up to 90 per cent or more of those very same cattle they have been struggling to keep alive for all those years.

What will these people do? How will they recover financially?

The expectation is that it will be the end of the line financially for some of these landholders. And then the final question is how they will adjust mentally to this sudden, cataclysmic change in the lives.

That is the question right now, everyone is afraid to answer.

Originally published as North west floods devastate landholders