Rockhampton has escaped moderate flooding with the city’s Fitzroy River now predicted to stay at a minor flood level.
The central Queensland river was initially forecast to reach a height of 8 metres earlier in the week, which was then revised to 7.5m, with predications on Thursday morning revising the number down again, to 7.3m.
Rockhampton Mayor Tony Williams said he was a “smiling mayor” after the revision, with a likely reduction in the 280 homes that were predicted to be affected at the higher levels.
“[But] we still have impacts from that level of flooding to a number of our sporting facilities, also there’s a number of houses that have water in properties, in their yards and around their houses,” he said.
He warned it was likely floodwaters would not significantly recede until early next week.
Riverside walkways and barbecue areas in Rockhampton are underwater. (ABC Capricornia: Katrina Beavan)
Bureau of Meteorology forecasting shows the river may remain above 7m until overnight Friday into Saturday.
Sitting at 7.18m on Thursday afternoon, the river was not expected to go higher than 7.3m, keeping it firmly in minor flood territory.
State Emergency Service central region manager Andrew Wyatt said there were 60 volunteers on stand-by ready for clean-up.
“We’ve been watching this now for several days, waiting for the peak to arrive, we’re well positioned, well prepared,” he said.
“The lower parts of the town and the surrounding areas, we’ve seen some inundation of properties, but not to the degree that it would have been [if it was] 8m or more.
“With the revised flood height, we’re not looking at too heavy a clean-up.”
Rockhampton mayor Tony Williams speaking to media on Thursday afternoon. (ABC News: Russel Talbot)
Waiting to assess damage
Some low-lying sporting fields had been inundated, including Rockhampton’s touch football fields.
Rockhampton Touch Football president Gary Benbow said this was the organisation’s seventh flood, and it would put this year’s competitions “back a few months”.
“We probably don’t really know how much damage it’s done until we get down there and reassess everything and just wait for the water to drop,” Mr Benbow said.
He said it wasn’t clear if water had breached the clubhouse, but the group had already organised for some players to train at various school grounds and parks.
“We’ve got over 20 representative Rockhampton junior teams looking for fields to train on for the Junior State Cup in July,” he said.
“That’s a bit of a battle at the moment, trying to get locations for everybody.”
The swollen Fitzroy River in the Rockhampton suburb of Port Curtis on Wednesday afternoon. (Supplied: Facebook, Archer Aerials. )
While the city waited for the water to recede, Mr Wyatt said the message to stay out of floodwaters was still key.
“We’ve had reports of trees and mattresses and snakes and all sorts of debris coming down the river,” Mr Wyatt said.
The city’s touch football fields, which sit on the north side of the river bank, were inundated this week. (Supplied: Neil Richardson)
Residents have also been warned that the river is home to many crocodiles.
The state government’s crocodile sightings dashboard showed three reports of crocodile sightings in the Rockhampton area since Monday.
The dashboard, run by the Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation, had labelled each sighting with an ‘under investigation’ status.