WEATHER CHAOS: Torrential downpour catches residents off guard, bridges over, many locals forced to skip work, school

DOWNPOUR

Michael Warren

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The Daintree Village, like other parts of the Shire has been hammered with rain the past 12-18 hours. Picture: Vincent O'Flaherty

‘Can’t get to work, local bridges are over and what the hell was that’ remain familiar sentiments with parts of the Shire still at a complete standstill after an overnight deluge caused chaos across the region this morning.

Just when the Douglas Shire thought it had seen the end of the wet season mother nature gave another reminder it wasn’t done just yet unleashing a widespread, sustained torrential downpour that started mid evening yesterday and lasted well into this morning.

The unexpected downfall caught many local residents off guard dumping copious of water all over the Shire with many residents suddenly flooded in, unable to get to work due to bridges being over, and some children unable to get to school due to isolated flooding.

As of 9.30am, local bridges Barrett’s Creek at Daintree Village and Anich’s Bridge at Mossman were under water and undrivable while there was also a serious amount of water around Foxton Bridge. While not in the Douglas Shire Bushy Creek bridge was also under water this morning as well.

Parts of Bonnie Doon Rd at Cooya Beach also received heavy rainfall.

Ergon Energy confirmed the heavy rainfall forced power outages at Bloomfield and Rossville with Bloomfield State School expected to be without power “for some time today”.

"The onshore south east winds drove the rainfall we saw in the Douglas Shire overnight, we had predicted rainfall for that area, but it's definitely a little bit more than what we were expecting," a BOM weather expert told Newsport from Melbourne just moments ago.

"We expect the region to have moderate rainfall the next few days, with Thursday and Friday to potentially deliver heavier rainfall."

No area was spared across the Shire with BOM confirming Craiglie received 126mm, Mossman 158mm, Port Douglas 126mm, Daintree Village, 230mm and Stewart Creek Valley 269mm. 

In Cairns, Cairns Airport received the sixth highest amount of rainfall for an April day after recording 199mm over the past 24 hours.

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