{"id":773048,"date":"2026-07-01T23:16:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T23:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/773048\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T23:16:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T23:16:36","slug":"clermont-community-bands-together-for-slow-steady-flood-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/773048\/","title":{"rendered":"Clermont community bands together for slow, steady flood recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Allan Kelly had driven on the flooded Gregory Highway before, but when he felt his ute start to move sideways, he knew he and his daughter were in trouble.<\/p>\n

“Not my greatest moment as a father,” the Clermont-based property owner and church pastor said.<\/p>\n

The ute eventually became stuck in a table drain, and Mr Kelly and his daughter were forced to sit on the top of the vehicle until 2am.<\/p>\n

“I got out and I tested the water and I got up onto the road, it was just above my knees,” he said.<\/p>\n

Both eventually pulled themselves up onto the road and walked 4 kilometres back to town.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Allan Kelly says he wanted to return home as quickly as possible to check on his horses.\u00a0 (ABC Capricornia: Vanessa Jarrett)<\/p>\n

The memory of threatening storm clouds sticks with Mr Kelly.<\/p>\n

“I was worried because it was still raining,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It could have come up. We could have got washed away.”<\/p>\n

In the small Central Queensland town, similar stories are still told six months on from the worst flood in more than 100 years.<\/p>\n

As the remnants of Ex-Tropical Cyclone Koji barrelled west, it spread consistent heavy rain<\/a> across broad swathes of the Isaac and Central Highlands regions.<\/p>\n

At the convergence of several creeks, more than 140 homes in and around Clermont were impacted on Monday, January 12.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Local helicopter pilots scrambled to rescue stranded families as waters rose rapidly.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Liz Slattery says her group was not given any warnings the waters were rising quickly in Clermont.\u00a0 (ABC Tropical North: Liam O’Connell)<\/p>\n

State Emergency Service (SES) Clermont group leader Liz Slattery said there were two volunteers, including herself, in town that day.<\/p>\n

“There wasn’t any preparations here; we were given no warning whatsoever,” she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Slattery said despite filling sandbags quickly, it was too late to help some people.<\/p>\n

“We had an urgent job come in that there was an elderly couple trapped in floodwater,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Dozens of homes across Clermont and other low-lying areas were impacted.\u00a0 (Supplied: Bush Heli Services)<\/p>\n

“We borrowed a neighbour’s tinny and went and picked them up, and they had water up to their waist in their house.”<\/p>\n

Private helicopters spent the day rescuing people isolated by rising water, and more volunteers from across Central and North Queensland arrived in the following days.<\/p>\n

Ms Slattery said it was “very lucky” no-one died in the floods.<\/p>\n

“We could have been looking at a few fatalities because it just happened so quickly,” she said.<\/p>\n

State, federal funding stoush<\/p>\n

As residents ask how to better prepare the town for future floods, the Queensland government is disputing commonwealth plans to change disaster-funding arrangements.<\/p>\n

In the days after the emergency, the state and federal governments allocated more than $66 million to direct disaster support to communities across Central and Western Queensland.<\/p>\n

Further bridge and drainage upgrades in Clermont have also been announced in the months since.<\/p>\n

\"Haybales<\/p>\n

Private helicopters spent days ferrying people, food and essential supplies to isolated farms.\u00a0 (Supplied: Bush Heli Services)<\/p>\n

The commonwealth has now proposed splitting state and federal funding 50\/50, instead of the current 64\/36.<\/a><\/p>\n

Queensland Disaster Recovery Minister Ann Leahy said if the proposal went ahead, it would “seriously impact on the ability of councils and the state government to continue that recovery”.<\/p>\n

“We can work with councils to make sure that we get that trunk infrastructure into those newer states, which are flood-free,” Ms Leahy said.<\/p>\n

“But we want to make sure that there’s no daylight between response and recovery.”<\/p>\n

Recurring nightmare<\/p>\n

A bright-yellow excavator sits next to a freshly dug pile of dirt at Justin Lawrence’s property, about 15km outside town.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Justin Lawrence is building a levy bank well above the 1916 flood level.\u00a0 (ABC Capricornia: Vanessa Jarrett)<\/p>\n

He said he bought the digger this year and intended to build a levy bank around his property after being caught by surprise by the fast-rising water in January.<\/p>\n

“It washed through the backyard hard, which took the pool fence, and that’s when it started getting fairly real,” Mr Lawrence said.<\/p>\n

While water did not enter the home, he said the chaos of ensuring his children, his horses and valuable machinery were safe had stayed with him.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Justin Lawrence says his property sits downstream of Clermont township, and he had more warning water was coming.\u00a0 (ABC Capricornia: Vanessa Jarrett)<\/p>\n

“Afterwards, you’d be asleep in bed and wake up thinking that water was coming through the window and that you were going to get wet in bed.”<\/p>\n

Homes, farms rebuilt<\/p>\n

At Mr Kelly’s home, the force of the water slammed kilometres of fencing and twisted them into metal balls.<\/p>\n

The past six months have involved waking up before sunrise to spend two to three hours rebuilding the fences before work, as well as on days off.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Allan Kelly says he has been able to retrieve and reuse fence posts which were not as badly damaged.\u00a0 (ABC Capricornia: Vanessa Jarrett)<\/p>\n

“We’ve probably got 4.5km done and we’ve got another five to do,” he said.<\/p>\n

He said neighbours had been sharing everything from Rosewood fence posts to mechanical post-drivers.<\/p>\n

“All different people have come out just to help with fencing and pushing and lending a shoulder and pushing in, that’s been so encouraging.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Allan Kelly had driven on the flooded Gregory Highway before, but when he felt his ute start to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[278249,64,63,13405,295612,95201,75,236988,18630,101158,215087,141973,26673,227719,128,33608,367093],"class_list":["post-773048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ann-leahy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-commonwealth-government","tag-digger","tag-disaster-recovery","tag-environment","tag-excavator","tag-flooding","tag-isaac-regional-council","tag-koji","tag-kristy-mcbain","tag-north-queensland","tag-sandy-creek","tag-science","tag-ses","tag-wolfang-creek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}