{"id":236757,"date":"2026-01-16T19:04:31","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T19:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/236757\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T19:04:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T19:04:31","slug":"a-serious-amount-of-rain-central-queensland-flooding-could-isolate-some-communities-for-months-queensland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/236757\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A serious amount of rain\u2019: central Queensland flooding could isolate some communities for months | Queensland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ashleigh Brieffies is standing on the front steps of her home in central Queensland<\/a> on Monday afternoon as knee-deep water sweeps over the grounds of her property.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it comes up another 2ft we\u2019ll probably be underwater,\u201d says Brieffies, who lives in Clermont. \u201cI think we\u2019ll be looking for a boat or a chopper.\u201d<\/p>\n

The showhorse owner and cattle breeder and her veterinarian husband, Brendan, are not the only ones isolated and preparing for the worst as ex-Tropical Cyclone Koji unleashes torrential rain across swathes of north and central Queensland.<\/p>\n

Nor are they the only ones calling for a helicopter.<\/p>\n

More than a year\u2019s rain fell in one week in some places, with stranded communities facing months of isolation.<\/p>\n

Emergency services issued a flash-flood warning for Clermont, about 300km inland from Rockhampton, on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Bureau of Meteorology predicted we were gonna get a fair bit of rain,\u201d Brieffies says. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think anyone realised how bad it would get.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says more than 250mm of rain fell on the property in a matter of days, the bulk of it on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt came in pretty hard and fast,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Brieffies made it into Clermont township on Sunday to stock up on \u201cbaked beans and spaghetti cans\u201d but, by mid-morning on Monday, she could no longer leave her property.<\/p>\n

Clermont itself was cut off, with one motel owner saying she was getting calls from people living near its low-lying lagoon whose homes were being evacuated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t overly calm this morning, to be completely honest,\u201d Brieffies says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worry for everyone in the area and we\u2019re dealing with these fires down in Victoria<\/a> \u2026 everyone\u2019s being hit a bit hard at the minute. You pray and you hope it doesn\u2019t happen to you but, when it does, it\u2019s a real wake-up call.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t help being a bit teary as you try to push through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Military may be called in<\/p>\n

Dotted across the state, other towns are being marooned by flood waters and landslips.<\/p>\n

The Mackay mayor, Greg Williamson, says the town of Eungella, which sits at the top of an escarpment in the ranges inland from the coastal city, may be cut off for months to come.<\/p>\n

He says some localities within his shire received up to 700mm of rain in a 48-hour period.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a serious amount of rain and it\u2019s brought with it some flash flooding,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The mayor says the road up to Eungulla is \u201cseriously damaged\u201d and the back road out \u201cnow impassable\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we have over 200 people now just cut off,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we will be working through how we resupply them. For the initial supplies, in terms of generator fuel, milk, bread, medical supplies, those sorts of things, we think it\u2019s going to be helicopter \u2013 but we don\u2019t have the helicopters to do that\u201d.<\/p>\n

Williamson says the military may be required to make those supply drops. Based on drone footage of the main road into town, the mayor estimates it could be closed to traffic for months.<\/p>\n

Two nearby communities in the Pioneer Valley, Pinnacle and Gargett, are without potable water, the mayor says, after \u201cthe ground shifted\u201d and a reservoir was drained.<\/p>\n

The mood in some marooned communities is calm. The inland coalmining hub of Dysart was cut off on Monday, with a local councillor, Verniece Russell, saying the town of almost 3,000 could be an island for days to come.<\/p>\n

Ashleigh Brieffies\u2019 property outside Clermont. Photograph: Ashleigh Brieffies<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a standard joke around here that as soon as we get more than an inch of rain everyone buys up all the bread and milk,\u201d she says. \u201cBut everyone\u2019s quite happy and relaxed.\u201d<\/p>\n

And speaking from Mackay on Monday afternoon, the Queensland premier, David Crisafulli<\/a>, brought the \u201cgood news\u201d that the weather system was \u201cbreaking up\u201d and had brought \u201cwelcome rain\u201d to parts of the state.<\/p>\n

But major flood warnings remained in place, he said, including for the Connors, Isaac, Flinders and Georgina rivers, while the gulf country catchments were in flood watch.<\/p>\n

A Queensland police service spokesperson said there had been 158 requests for help from the State Emergency Service between 5am Sunday and Monday afternoon<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy I raise that is there is the prospect of those heavy falls moving west,\u201d Crisafulli said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got areas that have had an immense amount of rainfall \u2013 some of them more than a year\u2019s fall in a week period \u2013 those catchments are swollen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The premier said authorities were carefully monitoring rainfall in those already drenched catchments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurther rain there could be devastating for the north-west,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Richmond, a town that sits halfway between the inland mining city of Mount Isa and Townsville, was forecast to receive up to 100mm of rain over the three days from Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of cattle have already died in that part of the state and up into the gulf country after weeks of torrential rain.<\/p>\n

There, days of sunshine have led to waters receding and cattle emerging from their islands of grass on to fresh pasture, the Richmond mayor, John Wharton, says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want any more rain,\u201d he says. \u201cWe can handle 20mm, 30mm \u2013 that\u2019ll wash a lot of grass with mud on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut 100mm is not welcome. We do not want that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ashleigh Brieffies is standing on the front steps of her home in central Queensland on Monday afternoon as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-236757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}