Residents in flooded parts of Western Australia's Kimberley region are facing a lengthy and costly clean-up, after the record-breaking weather event caused severe damage to homes and infrastructure.
As critical supplies continue to be distributed to flood-affected communities, the focus has shifted to starting the mammoth recovery effort.
The Fitzroy River peaked at a record height of 15.8 metres at Fitzroy Crossing on Wednesday afternoon.
Water levels have substantially fallen since but Western Australia's emergency services minister, Stephen Dawson, said the once-in-100-year event is far from over.
"Many roads are impassable and many communities are now isolated," he said.
"There is a massive, massive job ahead of us … we've now got 250 people working on this."
Mr Dawson said a rapid damage assessment and clean-up plan had been completed but it could take weeks or months to deal with the destruction left behind.
"This is just the beginning of what will be a major recovering and rebuilding effort, as we work with the Commonwealth to deliver further financial and on the ground support," he said.
"We're hopeful that the ADF people will help us with that rapid damage assessment work that needs to take place, so we get a real sense of the damage that exists there.
"[But] until we can safely get out to do the work, we really won't know the true extent of damage and what work lies ahead."
Main Roads is also expected to arrive in the town on Tuesday or Wednesday, with divers set to assess the Fitzroy Crossing bridge which has collapsed.
People reluctant to evacuate
Authorities have so far evacuated, rescued or relocated 233 people from the worst-hit areas and responded to 54 requests for assistance.
However, Mr Dawson said authorities faced some resistance from people who didn't want to leave their homes.
"Some people haven't seen a helicopter before [and] didn't want to get on it," he said.
"Some people [have] never left their community before, so that's why we're not forcing anybody out, we want to keep people safe [and] if they are insisting on staying, then we are providing some supplies for them."
Meanwhile, emergency services teams were on the ground at Fitzroy Crossing to assess the damage to homes in the town.
"If there is little damage to homes, we hope to get people back to those homes."
Much-needed supplies flying in
Rainfall and strong winds have eased across the catchment, with the remnants of former tropical cyclone Ellie drifting away from the region and across to the Northern Territory border.
Mr Dawson said that has helped to bring more aircraft in.
"Yesterday, Fitzroy Crossing felt like London Heathrow Airport with the numbers of planes and helicopters flying in and out of it," he said.
"There's lots of suppliers going in there, there's people being evacuated out of there."
Food, medicine and other vital goods are being flown into Fitzroy Crossing, with five tonnes of supplies hitting the ground since Friday.
Two barges carrying additional supplies are also scheduled to arrive in Broome on Tuesday and Wednesday.
While flood levels within the Fitzroy Crossing, Mount Barnett and Christmas Creek areas are falling, people in Noonkanbah, Looma, Willare, Pandanus Park and Camballin are warned to prepare for rising water levels.
Willare Bridge Roadhouse is around 200 metres from the Fitzroy River.
Manager Neralie Middleton said the river had risen about a metre in the past couple of days and is now sitting at 10.3 metres.
"Hopefully it doesn't get any worse and it's just dispersing either side into the flood plains and the bridge itself will remain hopefully unscathed," she said
Requests for mental health assistance
Mr Dawson and DFES commissioner Darren Klemm attended a community meeting at Fitzroy Crossing on Saturday, to discuss some of the challenges residents were facing.
Mr Klemm said requests were made for mental health support.
“They've been through a really difficult period, certainly, there's some people who are struggling with the magnitude of it, and the impact of it,” Mr Klemm said.
“And that's what we're there for, to make sure we're providing that assistance in whatever form they need.”
He said support will be made available, but the main priority now was ensuring affected communities received essential supplies.
“All of those staples, the very things that here in Perth, we take for granted, like your food, your water and these sorts of things, we've been really concentrating on getting that into them,” he said.
“So that, as much as possible, life can continue on, albeit the challenges around the infrastructure that sits within those communities.”
