00:00I'm here in Longreach where the Thompson River is finally on its way down.
00:06It's been steadily rising over the last couple of days but peaked yesterday and has dropped
00:11overnight but it is slow going.
00:13The Queensland Premier David Christopher was out here on Wednesday and he said then that
00:17the recovery phase starts now but the reality for a lot of people in outback Queensland
00:22is that's just not possible and that is what makes this weather event so different from
00:26other natural disasters which usually come and go very quickly and within a couple of
00:30days residents are able to get in and start the cleanup and try to get their lives back
00:34on track but for a lot of people this is now the second week and they can't start the cleanup
00:39because their towns are still underwater.
00:42In other towns the floodwaters have gone down, the sun is shining but that means all the
00:46mud that has been left behind is starting to dry, it's getting baked on and that's going
00:51to make the cleanup even more difficult.
00:53Ergon crews have been doing a fantastic job, they've been getting airdropped into a lot
00:57of the worst affected areas, getting mains power reconnected but many properties in those
01:02towns have been so badly damaged they will need work from private electrical contractors
01:07before they're safe enough to reconnect to the grid.
01:10Jake Elwood from the Queensland Reconstruction Authority spoke to the ABC a short time ago
01:15from Charleville where he gave an update on the operation.
01:18There have been a number of communities that have been inundated so making sure that they're
01:22getting the support, making sure that they get the washouts, all that type of thing and
01:27then making sure that they have an opportunity to fully recover.
01:30We provided $5 million grants provided between the Commonwealth and State Government for
01:35fodder relief and we've just had announced $75,000 grants for our primary producers which
01:41is a wonderful start for them to get back on their feet.
01:45It's going to be a very complex operation, to give you an example the little town of
01:49Jundah about 200 kilometres southwest of where we are in Longreach, it was devastated
01:54by floodwaters.
01:55The water has gone down there now but access is still the main issue.
01:59The main road, the highway into town was washed away, Main Road's crews came and repaired
02:05the road, it had reopened and then all that rain we had a couple of days ago washed the
02:09road away again.
02:11It has just reopened only for locals and essential services so people can go home to start the
02:16clean up.
02:17We tried to get access into there today, I spoke to police to try to get permission,
02:21they said they were happy for us to go so long as we jumped in with an emergency services
02:26vehicle but the issue is all the emergency services are still flying because the condition
02:31of the road is so bad.
02:32What is usually a two hour drive has now become a three and a half hour drive one way and
02:37so emergency services say they can't afford to lose seven hours of sunlight, it doesn't
02:43leave them enough time to help those people and get the work done.
02:47The road we are hoping is going to reopen for public use tomorrow, it will be reduced
02:53speeds but that's just for light vehicles, not for trucks and so all the big supply runs
02:59are still going to have to happen by air.
03:01That situation is going to be repeated Dan in many towns across outback Queensland and
03:06so for that reason this recovery effort is going to be a marathon and not a sprint.
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