Rain ruins region's roads

Days of intense rainfall that locals say they haven’t experienced in decades has inundated the region, causing widespread damage to the entire road network and isolating the Tablelands from the coast for days.

By Robyn Holmes

Massive damage to the Palmerston Highway is expected to take months to repair.

While the Mareeba Shire and Tablelands area hardly felt Cyclone Jasper as it crossed the coast, the rain in the system’s tail caused the worst flooding in recent memory over the weekend, with official rainfall recorded at Mareeba over four days totalling nearly 600mm, and Atherton at 633mm.

Mareeba’s worse day for rain was Sunday when 262mm fell.

Many locals recorded even more in their rain gauges, and there was heightened interest in the level of Tinaroo Falls Dam which stood at just over 107% on Monday.

The main roads to the coast have all suffered extensive damage, cutting Mareeba and the Tablelands off, with Kuranda Range Road shut for nearly three days. Some locals were stuck in Cairns which suffered the worst rainfall in decades, with people having to be rescued off rooftops at the Northern Beaches overnight Saturday and Sunday.

On Sunday, the Palmerston Highway fell victim to what was an extraordinary rain event, with a photograph showing a major crack splitting the road open shared on Facebook posts.

Near Mareeba, a major culvert over Cobra Creek collapsed, cutting residents off in Emerald End Road, but council workers were quick to create a detour on Monday morning.

A causeway on Carmen Road, off the Mareeba-Dimbulah Road, was also washed away and the bridge that crosses Bushy Creek on Mt Lewis Road at Julatten was wiped out.

Houses in Myola, Kuranda, Julatten, Koah and Mareeba were inundated, with Mareeba Shire housing the evacuees who had nowhere else to go at local motels and B’n’Bs.

While Mareeba and other urban centres around the region got back to normal early this week, roads and damage to other critical infrastructure remain the biggest issue for councils.

Mareeba Shire CEO Peter Franks said crews had been working since 4am on Wednesday and had been able to respond quickly to issues such as broken water main due to the culvert collapsing at Cobra Creek on Sunday.