Tue. Nov 5th, 2024
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Kathleen Walker’s Christmas dinner is underwater.

The Wujal Wujal woman is at Cooktown, north of Port Douglas, displaced by ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper.

Cut off without power and fast running out of supplies, 270 Wujal Wujal residents have now been evacuated by Chinook helicopters.

Many have lost everything.

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Ms Walker, who is also known as Nanna K, is sleeping on a camp bed at the PCYC.

“I didn’t want to leave my house. I said to my son, ‘I don’t want to go,’ but in my heart, I have to move because rain just come day and night,” she said.

“I’m homeless, I’ve got nowhere to stay, everything is all underwater. I bought turkey for Christmas dinner, ham, it’s all underwater.”

“We want to go back home. We want to have a Christmas dinner at home.”

Floodwaters have inundated Wujal Wujal.
Floodwaters have inundated Wujal Wujal.(Supplied: Desmond Tayley)

Fifty people left Wujal Wujal – an Indigenous community 170 kilometres north of Cairns – on Thursday, in the last planned evacuation. Some residents have chosen to remain, Queensland Police Service has confirmed.

‘We’re refugees’

They will spend Christmas in motels, caravan parks and the local school’s boarding house.

Coraleen Shipton is also at Cooktown’s PCYC.

“We’re refugees at the moment, mate. That’s the main problem,” she said. 

“When will the government, when will the politicians help?

“We just want to be home.”

a close up portrait of coraleen shipton

Wujal Wujal resident Coraleen Shipton is staying at the Cooktown PCYC. (ABC News: Victoria Pengilley)

Residents have food, shelter, and support in Cooktown — but their worry has now turned to infectious diseases. 

“The next worry for us is the spread of infection, they talk about COVID and other infections,” Ms Shipton said. 

“What else from here? We’ve already been through a natural disaster. What are we going to face next?” 

bradley creek standing outside the pcyc

Bradley Creek’s daughter was born while he was at an evacuation centre. (ABC Southern Queensland: Tobi Loftus)

Wujal Wujal Mayor Bradley Creek was at the evacuation centre on Thursday, when his daughter was born.  

He was away when the floods hit, with his wife Marian in Cairns, and has been travelling between there and Cooktown. 

“It’s a big relief knowing everyone is in Cooktown now,” he said. 

“I can drop my shoulders a bit now and get happy now to receive the great news from my wife that she’s had her bub just now.”

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He said the community had not expected the flood’s ferocity. 

“The community didn’t get enough warning. Especially with the rainfall we got in the catchment. You’re talking 200mm, it’s a lot. There was no warning at all. The bureau didn’t even catch that,” he said.

Flood warning at Kowanyama

Meanwhile, on the other side of Cape York, residents of Kowanyama have been told to brace for floods. 

The Bureau of Meteorology’s Shane Kennedy said that on Thursday afternoon, Magnificent Creek was “well into moderate flooding” at 3.6 metres. 

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