The weather system from ex-tropical cyclone Jasper is continuing to cause issues. The "main concern" now is around Kowanyama, a small community on Cape York Peninsula. An alert has been sent to residents to prepare for possible widespread flooding which is expected to hit as early as Christmas Eve.
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TVTranscript
00:00 So the community has been preparing in the last five days to get ready for the rise in
00:07 the floodwaters here in Kaunyama.
00:09 Robbie, what does that entail?
00:11 What have you been doing to mitigate the risks?
00:14 Our community has been busily preparing sandbagging for the low-lying areas.
00:22 We've got a team of volunteers from SES Queensland up here, and I thank them for coming up here.
00:28 They're all the way from Atherton.
00:29 We've got some senior QFES moneymen that are also assisting us with our planning.
00:35 At this stage, we've mitigated a lot of our risk in the community through some hard work
00:40 done by our council team of workers.
00:44 Brilliant.
00:45 Robbie, I know you sent us some footage.
00:48 Talk us through what we're going to see in these pictures that you've sent us.
00:55 I think I sent some videos of that video there of Dangbar station, which is 100 kilometres
01:00 – no, sorry, Kalata station, which is about 100 kilometres upstream from us.
01:06 OK, and presumably that river's much smaller than that, usually.
01:12 Yes, very much smaller than where it is here.
01:15 The main Mitchell River from there, with that video there of Dangbar, is a good way from
01:20 where that station is there now.
01:22 How was it flying over?
01:23 I mean, what were your first impressions when you saw just how much water there was?
01:30 It's a lot of water.
01:31 We had two experienced people from that country up there that flew up on the helicopter for
01:36 us.
01:37 One of the people that flew up there had said that he hadn't seen water like that before,
01:45 but it was also his first time up in a helicopter when it's in flood.
01:49 There is a lot of water coming down and we prepared as well as we can for it.
01:54 Yeah, I mean, you're a 90 per cent Aboriginal community.
01:59 Tell me about Kauanyama and its people.
02:03 Yeah, we're pretty resilient.
02:07 Kauanyama is known in the local language up here as the place of many waters and we're
02:12 certainly going to feel the effects of many waters to come, yeah.
02:17 Have people been moved from their homes yet or are you waiting to see what happens?
02:24 Not just yet.
02:25 We've got plans in place and when it gets up to a certain level in town, we will be
02:31 sending out the alerts and visiting those low-lying areas in town.
02:35 There's about 20 houses that can be affected from major flood level.
02:43 So we're working on that as we speak and continue to communicate with our residents in those
02:48 areas to make sure that we're here to support them and make sure that they're comfortable
02:54 and getting to higher ground.
02:56 And how are you able to communicate with them?
02:59 Is it a case of going and knocking on doors?
03:01 Yes, I'm about to go out for my first trip with the SES team at about 4.30 today, just
03:09 to remind those residents in those vulnerable areas to start preparing.
03:15 We've had good support from our Queensland police officers and a police liaison officer,
03:21 a local lady from here going around and talking to the same residents and letting them know
03:25 that the flood is coming and they need to prepare for the flood to get to higher levels
03:33 and prepare to move to higher ground with family and friends.
03:36 Robbie, you said the water level is currently at 3.8, it might get to 4.6.
03:42 So talk us through what the next couple of days might look like for you.
03:47 Presumably not much sleep.
03:49 Yes, the water has been, from about this time yesterday, so about 24 hours ago, it started
03:56 slowing down.
03:58 It rose up pretty quickly in the previous 24 hours, but it's starting to slow down now,
04:03 but it's still rising and it's still yet to reach that peak of about 4 metres.
04:07 [BLANK_AUDIO]