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.”
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.”
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?”
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.
“It’s well into moderate flooding and could push into the major, which is the four-metre mark over the next couple of days,” he said.
“[There are] likely to be a number of flood peaks making their way towards Kowanyama that could last for quite a few days there.”
Vulnerable residents have already been evacuated.
Mr Kennedy said ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper was now a weak tropical low that would slowly drift east over the coming days, before moving over the Coral Sea.
“You might see a little bit of rainfall enhancement, but not likely to see any tropical cyclone development at this stage,” he said.
“Then there are signs that it will move back west into the Gulf of Carpentaria by the middle to later part of next week, so hopefully no further impacts there.”
To higher ground
When she can finally go home to Wujal Wujal, Nanna K expects to move to higher ground.
“I’m scared now to go back to that house, I probably might move to a higher place,” she said.
She said the community will rebuild.
“We all one, and we are strong people. We’ll get through this together. And what we need [is] help from state and federal [government], to give us some food back in Wujal, good road, and we’ll be harmony.”