Elderly flown to safety as Gulf flooding leaves outback awash
Vulnerable people will be evacuated from an outback town by air amid widespread, record-breaking floods across Queensland’s vast northwest.
Flooding inundates a van park in Burketown. (Image: Carol Marshall/Facebook)
Small helicopters and planes will be used to airlift elderly people from Burketown near the Gulf of Carpentaria to Mount Isa, about 400km to the south, on Friday.
Queensland Fire and Emergency Services say it is a precautionary step, not a total evacuation, with the nearby Albert River forecast to rise higher than the record flood level of 6.78m later in the day, with more rises possible this weekend.
Burketown police say they are co-ordinating the evacuation of vulnerable people and some properties at Burketown and surrounds, due to major flood warnings in the area. Police are doorknocking all homes in the town.
In the nearby Indigenous community of Doomadgee, 10 elderly people have also been moved from an aged care home to a hospital as a precaution.
Burketown streets this week (Image: Murrandoo Yanner)
The Nicholson River is approaching the highest ever seen and stormwater is backing up, but as of Friday morning, there was no water in the town, the QFES spokeswoman said.
Essential supplies were flown into the stranded community from Cairns on Thursday, with further resupply flights planned.
A number of cattle stations in the Nicholson and Gregory river catchment areas have also been evacuated.
However, some people have been stranded after days of persistent rain such as a group of five at The Drovers Camp in Camooweal, about 200km west of Mount Isa.
Traffic is moving to the Northern Territory border, about 14km west, but the Barkley Highway link to Mount Isa remains cut by floodwaters.
Josie Rowlands from The Drovers Camp says it’s “very green, very wet and very soggy”, but said the rain is welcome.
“It’s going to be good because we’re going to be at a point when we have no rain,” she told AAP.
“I’m never going to say ‘no more rain’.”
Major flood warnings are in place for the Nicholson, Gregory and Leichhardt rivers, with further falls of potentially more than 100mm of rain expected over catchments.
A major flood warning is also in place for the lower Flinders Rivers and a minor warning has been issued for the Cloncurry River which was expected to reach a minor flood level of 3m on Friday night.
“Several flood peaks continue to move along the Cloncurry and Flinders Rivers, and further rises are likely at Walkers Bend over the next few days,” the Bureau of Meteorology said in an alert.
