Tales of survival emerge as the flood clean up gets underway

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A warning this story contains some distressing images. Some outback Queensland residents whose towns have been smashed by record-breaking flooding are being allowed home to assess the damage. While floodwaters are receding in parts the true scale of the devastation won't be known for weeks.

Transcript

00:00A tireless army of volunteers working its way through outback homes, carefully removing

00:07the thick mud left behind as floodwaters finally recede.

00:14Bev Maunsell was woken by family last Friday morning as a torrent of water made its way

00:19into her Jundah home.

00:21Hopped out of bed into the water, it was splash.

00:25She had to be ferried to safety.

00:27It was a shock you know because it came up very quickly, it came up overnight the water.

00:34I had no idea it was in the home.

00:38Most of the town had evacuated, some with animals stayed behind.

00:42Louise O'Neill had moved her horses to the highest yard in town.

00:46The next morning the floodwater was head high.

00:49She almost drowned trying to swim them to safety.

00:51I thought I was going to die.

00:53Honestly when I got underneath the water I could feel the other horses stomping around.

00:59Thousands of other animals have not been that lucky, with stock losses across the outback

01:03exceeding 150,000.

01:06These communities are built on agricultural production, that's what these towns rely on.

01:11So it's important that as a government that we understand the impact.

01:14Jundah was cut off and without power for a week.

01:17There was not one piece of dry land to look at, there was nowhere to run.

01:22The road into town reopened this morning, allowing more help to flow in.

01:26We won't recover.

01:28This is not months, this takes years to get over, especially out on the land, that's devastating

01:33for those people.

01:34Rivers are still high and many roads remain flooded, others are badly damaged and will

01:39have to stay closed, meaning some communities will be cut off for weeks.

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