Residents devastated by floods in Queensland's Gulf of Carpentaria have observed "catastrophic losses" to animals and infrastructure as emergency operations continue today.
Unprecedented flood levels had peaked in the communities of Burketown, Doomadgee and Gregory, with authorities focusing on re-supplying isolated residents and those who had been evacuated to neighbouring towns.
Authorities say it would be weeks before evacuated residents could return home and months before damaged roads would open up.
"The challenge for us now is keeping up essential services like power, telecommunications, water and food drops to these communities," emergency management coordinator for the northern region Elliott Dunn said.
At least 12 tonnes of food would be delivered to Doomadgee while supplies would be dropped to the small community of Bidunggu near Gregory.
Emergency crews were on the ground in hard-hit Burketown.
All phone services had been restored in the Gregory region on Sunday afternoon, according to Telstra, after intermittent outages over the past week.
Meanwhile, water was receding on roads near Normanton, on the other side of the gulf region, allowing trucks with supplies through.
Mr Dunn said the region was facing an enormous clean-up effort.
"The real work is yet to start, unfortunately. It will be weeks before we can get any machinery into these communities to begin clean-up," he said.
"When the water does recede, we do expect significant damage to the roads up there which will require repairs before those can be opened."
Crocodile-infested waters
Mr Dunn urged residents across the region to stay out of floodwater after a resident fell down a hidden drain and several croc sightings were reported.
"You just don't know what is under that water. We had a near miss with one resident falling down the drain, thankfully they are OK," he said.
"Crocs love dirty water and there have been several sightings.
"Don't drive your boat at night and be careful, you might create waves that push water into houses that haven't had water in them," he said.
Loss of livestock taking a mental toll
Mr Dunn said several major cattle properties had been impacted by the flood, causing "mass loss of livestock".
Graziers and helicopter pilots reported disturbing scenes of animal bodies floating on an "inland sea".
Farmers had been risking their lives, swimming through croc-infested waters to cut fences to allow cattle a chance of survival.
"It's not pleasant," said 21-year-old grazier Shanon Camp whose family was evacuated from their Floraville Station in the Burke Shire.
"You can hear them crying out because they're cold or they're swimming for their lives, but you can't do much.
"It's mentally draining hearing and seeing all of that. You've just got to stop dwelling on it otherwise you drown in your emotions."
Fourth-generation Burketown resident Shannon Moren was evacuated with her three daughters to Mount Isa last week.
"I checked on my parents' cattle property the other day and you can see cattle up to their necks in the water, literally swimming for their lives, but there's nowhere for them to go," she said.
"You can see some of the bodies floating on the water.
"It's really distressing."
Helicopter pilot Jack Clarke, who has been praised for his ongoing role in evacuations and supply drops, had seen "piles of dead cattle".
"I'm seeing catastrophic losses of cattle. Cattle swimming around for days. Thousands trying to fit onto higher ground … smothering each other," Mr Clarke said.
"With the water going down you can see some of their bodies hung up in the trees."
Mr Clarke had been helping out with feed drops but said there was too much water.
"It's an inland sea. We've tried to drop some hay out but there's nowhere for us to put it, the water is too wide.
"We've dropped some where we could to try and fill up their bellies a little," he said.
Sam Daniels manages the major cattle properties of Nardoo and Escott, in the Gulf.
He said he was expecting a loss of at least 10,000 cattle.
"Our cattle are struggling. We've got helicopters out there dropping hay and we're keeping an eye on things via GPS.
"But we're going to have losses," he said.
Cloncurry-based veterinarian Trevor Smith said there was hope for cattle if they could find higher ground.
"The only saving grace is that the region has had a strong wet season which means the cattle are really strong going into this flood event."
Authorities said the scale of livestock losses would not be clear until well after flood levels receded.
Residents brace for clean-up
While locals and authorities waited for flood levels to recede over the coming weeks, many were preparing to re-build "entire livelihoods," Mr Dunn said.
Mr Camp said his family had most likely lost everything.
"We'll have nowhere to stay when we go back. My dad's lost everything he's built out on that property," he said.
"But possessions can be bought back. At least no lives have been lost … you can't buy back a life."
