00:02This will give you a bit of a picture of how quickly things have changed here.
00:06When we were here yesterday morning, this was completely underwater.
00:11The road completely covered by a good, maybe 30 centimetres of water in some places.
00:17Now, out in this part of the country, everyone's in a four-wheel drive or a ute,
00:21so they felt pretty safe and comfortable, I think, driving through this part.
00:27Although, of course, if it's flooded, you should always forget it.
00:30But the water extended right the way across over the trees.
00:33You can see on the other side of the road.
00:35It's really quite stark what a difference 24 hours can make.
00:41And actually, it's not just the water over the roads.
00:43There is still some water on the road here to the airport, just a little bit further up the road,
00:48but it's very much a tiny little trickle and should be done with probably later today,
00:52which will be good news.
00:53As we expect the airport to reopen, we've got extra flights put on today.
00:57In order to help move some of those people who haven't been able to get out of this place
01:01for the last couple of days, as Narelle came through.
01:04But it's not just the water that's disappeared.
01:07So are some of the trees starting to be removed through this morning.
01:11We've seen crews out working.
01:13Although, for residents, there's a heck of a lot of chatter on Facebook right now.
01:18Who's got a spare chainsaw?
01:20Who needs a ute to help come pull some stuff away?
01:22This community has really, really rallied and is recovering incredibly quickly.
01:27Got the power back on yesterday.
01:29So it was only really a little more than 24 hours, I think, that we were without power.
01:34So that's great news.
01:35There was a brief water shortage yesterday, but that was rapidly rectified.
01:39This joint was well-warned, well-prepared, and then ready to react immediately after.
01:47As the sweat is dripping off my eyebrows, I think we can say that Weeper is looking pretty
01:52good.
01:52Now, that's not the case across all of Cape York Peninsula.
01:55There are still hundreds without power.
01:57Crews still out.
01:58Many places where the only assessments that can be done are from the air.
02:02So that is going to naturally take time.
02:05And for some, it'll be days and perhaps weeks until they're looking as back to normal as Weeper
02:09is.
02:10And Nate, just as that system moves away from Queensland and into the Northern Territory,
02:16what sort of impacts can we expect to see as this system sort of continues to dissipate
02:22into a tropical low?
02:26Well, that may not be the case for very long, by the way, but we'll get back to that in
02:30a
02:30second.
02:31It's going to be about the rain, really.
02:33I mean, the system is still going to have damaging winds, gusty conditions.
02:36We've got severe weather warnings across large swathes of EMT as a result of that through
02:40the day-to-day as it continues its westwards march.
02:43But it's the potentially triple digits in the gauges that's the concern.
02:47And, you know, Catherine, preparations are underway.
02:49That place, as you were there, has been dealing with that major flooding.
02:53And often response, we've seen the river responding with major flooding with as little as maybe 50
02:58millimetres.
02:59Here, we could see triple digits in the gauges through the day-to-day and into this afternoon.
03:03We're likely to see that river responding quickly as a result, possibly.
03:06Major flooding once again by this evening.
03:09Daily River, much the same.
03:10This system is essentially tracking directly over both of those communities.
03:14But then it pops out into Joseph Bonaparte Gulf.
03:17Now, it will definitely undergo some re-intensification then.
03:20And we're likely to see damaging winds starting to bother parts of northern WA, as well as potentially
03:24the territories west.
03:26But it could even intensify back to a cyclone, in which case it'll keep its name.
03:31It'll be tropical cyclone Norel once again if it goes.
03:34There's a moderate chance.
03:35I reckon it looks pretty likely that we aren't going to be done with Norel by the end of
03:40today.
03:40And in fact, we're going to be talking about it into next week.
03:43But for the rest of the tropics, I am literally dripping in sweat.
03:47I think they are too.
03:48But it's the wet season.
03:50So we're back to ops normal, at least here in Queensland.
03:53And hopefully for the Territory, it won't be that long until things are looking a lot
03:57better there too.
03:58Fingers crossed.
03:59All right, Nate Byrne, we'll let you get out of the sweaty heat.
04:02Thanks very much for the update.
Comments