Coming to grips with toll of flood

ALMOST 1000 Townsville homes have suffered severe flood damage and 252 of them are uninhabitable, with the recovery bill now standing at $124 million.

The Insurance Council of Australia says the bill will continue to rise, as people return to homes and businesses.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says authorities are scrambling to find emergency accommodation for Townsville families who face weeks or months out of their homes.

“In relation to damage assessments in the Townsville area, 1480 have been done to date. Of these, 738 are quite severely damaged and 252 are completely uninhabitable,” she said yesterday. “That is sad news for families.”

Some Townsville schools have also suffered severe structural damage, with assessments continuing.

About 200 people remained in evacuation centres yesterday and 7800 properties were still without power in the city.

“As of 10am (yesterday), insurers have received 10,064 claims, with insurance losses estimated at $124 million,” the insurance council’s Campbell Fuller said.

He also warned scammers were active in Townsville, with fake tradies going door to door offering building inspections and repairs for cash before taking the money and running.

There have been more than 16,000 claims for personal hardship assistance, with more than $1.9 million paid so far. Meanwhile, the flood disaster is rolling on across vast swathes of west and northwest Queensland.

Outback mayors spoke to disaster managers yesterday, expressing the enormity of the flooding in communities such as Richmond, Flinders shire and Winton. McKinlay Shire Mayor Belinda Murphy says graziers in her community fear they’ve lost between 20 per cent and 50 per cent of their herds.

She says without government support in the months ahead the local industry could be brought to its knees.

The Premier (pictured) said she’d told outback mayors they could expect support. She has ordered her agriculture minister to hold urgent talks with his federal counterpart to co-ordinate assistance for western communities. Severe weather warnings have been cancelled for north Queensland, with the weather system that caused the floods expected to move off the coast last night.

But with so much water in river systems, the danger out west is not over.