Flooded houses in the Kimberley will be uninhabitable for months and the cost of replacing everything that was swept away will be beyond many communities, traditional owners say.
Towns and communities in the Fitzroy Valley in north-west Western Australia have been hit by once-in-a-century flooding caused by torrential rain from ex-tropical cyclone Ellie, which is expected to create a 50km-wide inland sea as it spreads across the flood plain.
Hundreds of people have been displaced and are in evacuation centres or hunkering down with friends or family.
The Banuba man Joe Ross, who lives in Fitzroy Crossing, said the speed and ferocity of the flooding took many by surprise. Many were struggling to cope after seeing their property, livestock and even parts of their houses swept away.
“People are traumatised and angry, they’re displaced … many people have lost everything, the basics of their homes, fridges, air conditioning, stoves, bedding, personal things and photos,” Ross told Guardian Australia. “It’s an absolute disaster.”
His home was one of many to be flooded, and it could take two months to be livable again.
“It will probably be at least six to eight weeks [for all flooded houses to be habitable],” Ross said. “Obviously they will need to be assessed and approved by the department of communities before people can move back in. These are all Aboriginal housing.”
Ross said the stress of the extreme weather event had been compounded by a lack of communication with First Nations people.
“In a place with 80-90% Aboriginal people, you would expect that they would convene talks with Aboriginal leaders to let them know what they are doing, but it’s practically nonexistent, it’s a total disregard,” he said.
The Department of Fire and Emergency Services has sent in rescuers to evacuate the communities that are most at risk, as well as to deliver food and medical supplies via air and boat.
The emergency services minister, Stephen Dawson, told reporters at a press conference in the Kimberley town of Broome on Friday that he understood people were feeling angry and distressed.
“I understand frustrations from people,” Dawson said. “I’m frustrated too, as the community is too, because this weather event continues to go on and it has hampered our efforts to get people and supplies on the ground as quickly as we would have liked to.”
He said authorities were working on getting more supplies out to people on stations and re-stocking food and local stores.
The emergency services commissioner, Darren Klemm, said it was “the worst flood disaster in our state’s history”.
Klemm said emergency services were working with traditional owners and community leaders “on a daily basis to share key information”, but stressed that the scale of the disaster was unprecedented.
Mud that’s smelly, dusty, and sets like concrete
As the flood waters slowly began to recede, locals started tosift through the damage. The river has left behind cars, trucks, buses, livestock and dead animals, submerged in the brown water and caked in mud.
Derby shire councillor Geoff Davis estimates he has lost thousands of dollars worth of vehicles after his property, just outside Fitzroy Crossing, was flooded.
Davis was rescued by a neighbour, who swung by in his boat just as the first floor of his home was swallowed by the river. But he returned home a few hours later.
“The immediate threat of the second level of our house collapsing disappeared so I stayed here [on Thursday night],” he told Guardian Australia. “We’ve got animals here too so I stayed to keep an eye on them and feed them.”
The water had begun to subside on Friday, but Davis said mostof his belongings, beloved gardens, and cars that belonged to neighbours and friends were under half a metre of mud or water.
“Five of those vehicles – including the tractor and a bus and personal vehicles – they’re all fairly new so there’s most probably a couple hundred thousand bucks right there,” he said.
“The middle section of our house, the footings underneath have eroded and the centre of the house has sunk. Rectifying that might not be easy so I have no idea what the cost of that is.”
He is already dreading dealing with the mud. The rains have let up, but the heat is expected to soar to 35C over the next few days.
“The problem is when it dries out, which it will do when the river goes down, it gets smelly first and then it gets dusty,” he said. “And then it becomes like concrete and it’s extremely hard to move.
“It’s not a pleasant place to be when you’ve got stinking mud, dead animals and that hot with no air conditioning.”
Davis said he has been buoyed up by the support of family and friends – many of whom have also lost everything.
“There’s a few challenges in front of us, but there’s been some fantastic people offering help and moral support,” he said. “But at the moment, it’s working out what the problems are because still a lot of it is hidden underneath either water or mud.”
