Residents seeking shelter in Cooktown following flooding

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The ABC’s Joe O’Brien is at Cooktown he's been speaking with people recently evacuated from the town of Wujal Wujal.

Transcript

00:00 So we're at the Cooktown, what is usually PCYC here, but right now it's home to around

00:07 200 people from the Indigenous community of Wujal Wujal.

00:11 We spoke a little earlier to the Wujal Wujal Mayor, Bradley Creek, who actually had to

00:16 leave the community last week just before the cyclone hit because his wife was just

00:21 about to give birth.

00:22 And this is the first time he's actually been able to see his community since all this drama

00:27 has unfolded.

00:28 So he spoke to us a little bit about the impending birth, but also the drama he's been through

00:33 and coming here to see community members again.

00:35 It feels really great mate, to touch down in Cooktown and to see my family members from

00:41 Wujal today.

00:43 So most of the community members are here now, some are staying with family members

00:49 in the Cooktown community.

00:50 And we've spoken to a couple of them about the trauma of the night that they were in

00:55 the floods, not necessarily the cyclone because there wasn't much damage from the cyclone.

00:59 All of it, the vast majority of it came from the floods.

01:02 Spoke to them about that and also having this place as home now, but very keen to get back

01:08 to Wujal Wujal.

01:09 On Sunday it was pretty bad.

01:12 The river came up almost to my house, but I was lucky, one of the lucky ones.

01:20 There were a few that didn't make it there.

01:25 There were about 10 houses that went under, I'm sure.

01:30 It was a bit scary.

01:32 We had no time to get some stuff.

01:35 We just got ourselves in a hurry because the water was rushing into our house.

01:42 Another person we've come across here is Gary Ashworth.

01:45 He's from Dagara, which is where that 85-year-old man went missing from.

01:50 Gary actually knows him quite well.

01:52 Gary's gone through the trauma of that night that the water came up so quickly and they

01:57 all ended up on their roofs for hours waiting for help.

02:00 He was actually in touch with this 85-year-old man through that night.

02:04 I got a call from him about 10 o'clock stating I've got to get out.

02:10 I said it's most probably too late because there's a little bit of a creek before then.

02:13 That would have been 10 or 15 feet deep running.

02:16 We said hopefully someone will get you.

02:21 He said, "No, don't worry about it.

02:22 I'll go up in the second level of my house."

02:24 He went up in the second level.

02:26 Then another neighbour rang him and said, "How's it going?"

02:30 He said, "I'm going."

02:32 Then the house just got swept away, the whole house and him in it.

02:36 So many of these people have been through so much trauma, but the good thing for the

02:41 moment, at least they have somewhere to rest.

02:45 There's a constant stream of food coming in here and more and more people are trickling in.

02:50 in.

02:52 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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