Police are "extremely concerned" for the welfare of an 85-year-old man who has been missing since Sunday amid the Far North Queensland flood crisis.
There has been no sign of the man from Degarra, about 20 kilometres north of Port Douglas, which has been caught up in flooding in the wake of former Tropical Cyclone Jasper.
Deputy Police Commissioner Shane Chelepy told ABC News Breakfast this morning that police managed to access the remote town yesterday via land and conducted a water search.
"We have not been able to locate that male. I am now extremely concerned for his welfare," he said.
"What our troops found on the ground yesterday was devastation.
"The vegetation had been snapped and ripped through and where that male person's house was, it's been washed away."
Police are asking for anyone with any information about this person to contact them.
Clean-up begins after record rain
The clean-up has now begun in the region after more than 2 metres of rain was dumped in less than seven days.
Sonya Ezzy, in the Cairns suburb of Yorkeys Knob, watched as water rose to her back door and then into the bedrooms.
Yesterday she started clearing the mud from her house.
"Trying to hose all the mud out, the amount of mud that comes through, just you don't expect it," she told the ABC.
"It's like this big mess."
She said she wasn't expecting the water to get so high.
"We were just watching it come to the back door, and then it was going to the shed and then coming up through the bathroom drain, and then started seeping through the front into the bedrooms," Ms Ezzy said.
Stranded west of Port Douglas without power or reception, Duncan and Annie Cunningham Reid shouted a phone number to strangers across floodwaters to get word to their children.
Five families were cut-off at Julatten when their only exit was washed away.
The couple had gone to check on the water levels when they saw people in the distance.
"They then shouted my brother's number across to them and they took a photo and sent it to my brother to let us know what was happening," their daughter Jessie Cunningham Reid said.
The pair are hoping to be evacuated today.
"I'm worried about my parents, but they're very resourceful and they're normally prepared for cyclones," Ms Cunningham Reid said.
Wujal Wujal evacuation to continue
Deputy Commissioner Chelepy said crews managed to evacuate 97 people from Wujal Wujal into Cooktown yesterday.
"We were also accessing all of the isolated communities right across the cape. There's 36 of them," he said.
"We managed to get into 16 of those communities and we'll continue that today.
Loading..."It was pleasing that we didn't see any serious injuries or any serious concerns in those communities."
Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt said there would be one more evacuation flight out of Wujal Wujal today.
"What I'm told is that many people did not want to leave," he said.
Several houses in the Indigenous community have been lost.
Rain letting up
Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) senior forecaster Laura Boekel said the rain eased yesterday after the record-breaking deluge, allowing floodwaters in many areas to start falling.
The region from Innisfail to Cape Flattery has been virtually free of rain in the past 24 hours.
"Even though the rainfall has eased significantly, there is still a lot of a lot of water in those rivers," Ms Boekel said.
"We're asking people to remain up to date with those warnings to understand what the rivers are doing over the coming days."
She said the focus is now north to Cape York, where thunderstorms and significant rainfall are forecast for today, with the possibility of flash flooding.
Premier Steven Miles said the region was now in recovery phase.
"We're asking anyone who is cleaning up mud or damage from floodwaters, please make sure you wear enclosed shoes. Today is not the day to wear thongs."
On Tuesday it was confirmed one home had been totally destroyed, 15 homes were severely damaged, 50 moderately damaged and 92 had minor damage.
Disaster payments
Applications for the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment (AGDRP) and Disaster Recovery Allowance (DRA) will open at 2pm today.
People who live and work in the Cairns, Cassowary Coast, Cook, Douglas, Hope Vale, Mareeba, Tablelands, Wujal Wujal and Yarrabah local government areas will be able to apply for financial support.
Loading...The AGDRP is a one-off payment of $1,000 for adults and $400 for children affected by the floods.
The DRA provides up to 13 weeks of federal income support for employees or sole traders who have lost income because of the floods.
'Not a perfect science'
The BOM has defended its forecasting after federal LNP member for Leichhardt Warren Entsch said many in the far north had no idea Jasper would deliver record-breaking falls.
Ms Boekel said the situation "evolved very quickly" with emergency services and councils briefed on Saturday afternoon and alerts issued at 9pm that night.
"We had to change that warning strategy quite quickly into the weekend, as we got more information that those rain rates were likely to be higher than initially predicted," she said.
Federal Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt said he had "full confidence" in the BOM's prediction modelling.
"Meteorology is not a perfect science, the Bureau of Meteorology do the absolute best they can with the science they have available," he said.
"The reality is that we were dealing with a highly unpredictable weather system."
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2023-12-19 19:46:28Z
CBMiaGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIzLTEyLTIwL3FsZC1mbG9vZC1mYXItbm9ydGgtY3ljbG9uZS1qYXNwZXItYm9tLXJhaW4td3VqYWwtd3VqYWwvMTAzMjQ4MjU00gEoaHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAuYWJjLm5ldC5hdS9hcnRpY2xlLzEwMzI0ODI1NA
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