Grey nomads and other travellers staying in two different caravan parks in Cairns have endured an horrific night as heavy rain brought on by ex-tropical cyclone Nora sparked dangerous flash flooding.
More than 600mm of rain fell in some areas, with one tourist telling Channel 9’ Today show that he woke up to his caravan park full of water.
“Within 10 minutes it grew up to one metre,” he said. “Lots of motorhomes just swept away.”
SES rescue crews responded to calls from two different caravan parks, including the BIG4 Cairns Crystal Cascades park.
SES far north controller Sean McGuinness said there were access issues, and swift water teams were sent in first and flood boat crews were tasked to assist.
“There were 42 people evacuated by swift water rescue crews,” Mr McGuinness said. “The water did go down quite quickly and the swift water equipment was used to do that.”
Queensland Fire and Emergency Service (QFES) spokesman Shane Jarvis told the ABC that calls for help from the caravan parks started just before midnight.
Mr Jarvis said people were in “disbelief” at how quickly the water rushed through the park.
“Swift water rescue teams were really under the pump — they were working solid to continuously keep bringing people out on our rafts to safety,” he said. “To see this occur is very, very rare — to have seen this happen so that was the look on most people’s faces, even today.”
Mr Jarvis said one family with a small child had to smash a back window of their campervan to escape.
The Sunshine Coast Daily newspaper reports that while no-one was injured in the flash flooding, the speed at which the caravan parks were inundated meant there was a lot of damage.
“Some people did have the opportunity to get their belongings and others said their belongings were still in the caravans,” said Mr McGuinness. “There was one report that a rental car had been swept away from where a person had parked it the night before … there was a lot of damage.”
More rain is expected in the area with up to 200mm predicted over far-north Queensland as ex-tropical cyclone Nora makes it way off Australia.
Queensland Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner Katarina Carroll told the Cairns Post there was still a risk of flash flooding from Cape Tribulation in far north Queensland to Townsville.
I’m just up the hill a bit….and it’s been horrendous. But common sense tells you it runs down hills, so when you see the amounts being copped all around the area, you have to understand at this time of year it is only going to get worse with each downpour as everything is saturated. Do people not take notice of weather forecasts? It’s the reason, I’m still up here. I’m well over time here but it’s safer, so I’m just scratching my itchy feet (after I pull off my gum boots).
These hire companies should give out more information about just how much rain can be received up north. In saying that they’re probably hired from down south where people don’t understand. With what happened on Sunday along the captain cook hwy and the Barron alerts coming through flat out, there’s no way I would have been sitting down the bottom of that hill beside a runoff creek.