00:01It has been a true emotional, mental rollercoaster for the residents here in Catherine, just
00:08trying to ascertain if their town is going to flood again and what height this river
00:15could reach.
00:16Now, the Catherine River at the Catherine Bridge, which is where I'm standing now, is
00:20sitting above 16 metres.
00:22That is the minor flood level.
00:24Now, at this stage, the Bureau of Meteorology is expecting the river to not only reach major
00:30flood level, which is 17.5 metres, but it could actually exceed that level sometime later on
00:37today.
00:38Part of the sort of challenge with predicting where this river is going to rise to has been
00:45the fact that the Catherine River catchment is very large, it's very wet, and it is taking
00:51time for all of that water to sort of move through the system, and one of the sort of
00:56areas that people are very focused on here in Catherine is the Nitmaluk gauge that is further
01:04upstream.
01:04At this stage, the water is still rising there, and as long as it's rising there, it's still
01:10got a way to go here at the Catherine Bridge, and so people are still keeping a very watchful
01:16lie on where the river could end up, bearing in mind that earlier this month, this town
01:20was inundated with their worst flooding in decades.
01:23The peak at that time was 19.2 metres, so at this stage, it's not looking like we'll reach
01:29that level, but still some nervousness as we wait to see what level this river could rise
01:34to.
01:34And I believe there are concerns about people's water supply.
01:39Yeah, absolutely.
01:40Water has been a real challenge throughout this flood disaster, not just here in Catherine,
01:44but right across the top end.
01:46Darwin Dam has had challenges over the last few weeks.
01:48Last night, there was an alert issued by Power and Water that there were some leaks in the
01:54system at Adelaide River, which is a community just up the Stewart Highway north from where
01:59I am.
01:59That was a community hit really hard by severe weather over the last few days as a result
02:05of ex-tropical cyclone Norel.
02:07And so there were leaks there, and people there were warned that they wouldn't be able to access
02:11water potentially overnight.
02:13There are still boil water alerts in place for Numbawa, Batchelor and Adelaide River.
02:18There's also power issues for a number of communities, and part of that issue has been that there's
02:24these prolonged flood peaks because it just won't stop raining.
02:27And so crews have had difficulties actually getting in to assess what the problems are
02:32with the power system.
02:34So there are some significant ongoing challenges, not just here, but communities right across
02:40the top end.
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