Residents in the Gulf of Carpentaria are enduring a wet week after Tropical Cyclone Alfred weakened to a tropical low on Tuesday morning.
Bec McGuinness and her family run the service station and supermarket in King Ash Bay, 40km from Borroloola in the Gulf of Carpentaria, where residents are cleaning up after several days of intense rain and wind.
Speaking to the North Queensland Register on Tuesday morning, Ms McGuinness said the rain had finally stopped and the McArthur River appeared to have dropped slightly overnight.
“However, there is still a lot of water to come down from Borroloola with the high tide last night,” she said.
“The clean up will start today as we have a number of trees down and some properties have minor flood damage, 1100mm went through at least one house that we know of.
“Luckily there is only 31 people here at the moment so we have plenty of supplies.”
Ms McGuinness was unsure whether the 21km of dirt road leading into the fishing town was passable.
“Hopefully after a few days of sunshine everything will dry up and we can get ready for the coming tourist season and our big Easter Fishing Classic held over the Easter weekend in April,” she said.
“The low is expected to come back near us on Thursday so we will just have to wait and see.”
Others in the far north posted rain totals on the Who got the Rain? Facebook page this week including Tahna Jackson who reported 41mm at Stockade, Dimbulah, Far North Qld. Ms Jackson said that bought the total for February to 93mm and 548.2mm so far in 2017.
At Burketown, Russell Cunningham reported: Thursday 19mm, Friday 19mm, Saturday 135mm, Sunday 23 mm and 31mm for Monday.
“Wind is picking up off cyclone Alfred again and is still pouring, We will be growing gills shortly - only wish we could share,” he wrote.