Australia’s coast city braces for ‘biblical’ floods

SYDNEY - Residents of an eastern coastal city called for help filling sandbags Sunday as Australia’s worst flooding in 50 years threatened to isolate it and swamp many of its homes.

Rockhampton Mayor Brad Carter said the 75,000 residents were in a race against time after the Fitzroy River broke its banks and cut road links from both the north and the south.

“There’s nothing consistent when you have a flood,” Carter said. “We were under the impression the road to the north would remain open for a longer period of time.”

Carter, who estimated 400 houses would have water up to their floorboards, defended the decision to close the airport, saying water was now lapping either side of the main runway.

About 20 central Queensland towns are isolated and at least one person has died in what state Treasurer Andrew Fraser described as a “disaster of biblical proportions”.

The body of a 41-year-old local woman whose car was washed off a causeway near Burketown was recovered from the swollen Leichhardt River. A search is continuing for a 38-year-old man missing in similar circumstances in the Boyne River near Gladstone.

Police in Rockhampton said they had so far not needed to invoke emergency powers allowing them to forcibly evacuate residents who refuse to move.

Estimates of the number of Queenslanders affected go as high as 200,000. Most move in with friends or relatives as a precautionary measure rather than go to official evacuation centres.

Half of Queensland, an area covering 850,000 square km, is under water that may take weeks to drain away.

For some, the emergency has passed. River levels are falling in Bundaberg, Emerald and Theodore.

John Hooper, the mayor of Banana Shire, said roads needed resurfacing, power reconnecting and sewage systems repairing before he was ready to encourage people to return.

He called on the government to provide a helicopter to ferry feed to stock marooned by the floodwaters.

“A lot of cattle have been washed down the Dawson River and I heard that one farmer had lost a thousand head,” Hooper said.

Tony Riccardi, mayor of Bundaberg, said emergency crews had arrived to relieve those who had been working since before Christmas.

“Most of the people have gone back and are in recovery mode,” he said. “Hopefully, we should all be back on deck in a couple of weeks and if Mother Nature leaves us alone for a few days, we’ll be able to cope with normal life again.”

While water levels are dropping in Theodore it could be days before the all-clear and its 300 residents return.

In Condamine, local mayor Ray Brown defended his decision to call for an evacuation after the flood level trumped the record set in 1942.

Authorities worry that St. George, a town ravaged by flooding less than a year ago, could be in for another catastrophic soaking. They expect the Balonne River at St. George, 500 km west of Brisbane, to reach its peak next weekend.

The good news is that the torrential rains have stopped. “Generally, the activity is going to be pretty isolated so that shouldn’t cause too many more issues,” weather forecaster Brett Harrison said.