Townsville residents are urged to listen to authorities about seeking higher ground as the city’s top cop declares up to 20,000 homes could be inundated by floodwaters if torrential rain continues to fall in coming days as forecast.

Townsville Police District acting Chief Superintendent Steve Munro said 300 homes had been directly impacted by flooding as of 4pm Saturday.

Chief Supt Munro said that number could reach 500 by Sunday morning with heavy downpours expected and urged people at risk to make a prompt decision on whether to stay or go.

“So 500 homes (of the 80,000 homes in Townsville),” Chief Supt Munro said.

“If it continues tomorrow, and the next, we could be talking up towards the 10,000, towards the 20,000.

“If we keep going the way we are going we are going to move towards 10,000-20,000 homes so people need to start thinking.

“I’m really imploring to the people in those vulnerable areas, start thinking now about what you are going to do.”

Townsville residents evacuate as floodwater rises Townsville residents evacuate as floodwater rises

Residents are also being urged to charge up their devices as flood waters could create blackouts across the city.

Increasing flood waters are threatening the city’s power supply, forcing energy providers to turn power off to entire suburbs.

Flooding has already left 5000 low-lying homes without power, and more outages are likely to occur.

An Ergon Energy spokesperson has said the “unprecedented event” may mean parts of the city could be without power tonight if conditions further deteriorate.

“At short notice, we may have to de-energise sections of the network in low-lying areas which have been inundated,” she said.

Townsville HHS director of public health Dr Steven Donohue said the rule of three for keeping safe during the monsoon flooding was kids, chronic disease and cars.

“My strong message to the community is that we have a whole generation of children who have never seen rain or flooding like this and don’t understand the hazards,” he said.

“During floods we see tragedies where children are sucked into drains or culverts, even in shallow water.

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“If your kids must play in the puddles, keep them in your own yard with gumboots on to protect their feet.

“Flood water is heavily contaminated with dirt and bacteria.”

Dr Donohue also issued a warning to people with chronic diseases like diabetes or heart failure, and the elderly.

He also urged residents to leave the clean up to young, fit people wearing boots ans gloves

The state government is urging residents to turn on the radio and listen for emergency service updates.

Queensland Police are asking residents to call the State Emergency Services on 132 500 if they require assistance

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says the situation in North Queensland is “unprecedented and uncharted” as authorities manage dam levels.

She urged people to listen to local authorities and mark themselves as safe on Facebook as flood waters continue to rise.

“Please do not go sightseeing,” she said.

“My main concern is the safety of the families living in the Townsville region.”

Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill said there had been roughly 100 homes evacuated.

She said local authorities were managing the Ross River Dam levels, and were modelling scenarios with the Bureau of Meteorology and a hydrologist.

“Many of us have seen what happened in the Brisbane floods (in 2011),” she said.

“We are trying hard to ensure we do not make any of those mistakes.”

An evacuation centre is expected to be opened at Ignatius Park College, 368 Ross River Road, Cranbrook by 2pm.

QFES Commissioner Katarina Carroll said there had been 38 rescues in the last few days.

Teams overnight assisted in removing 80 people, she said.

“We have been carrying out our damage assessments which have been difficult to finalise,” she said.

Queensland Police Deputy Commissioner Bob Gee said local messaging in Townsville was critical.

“If you’re told to move to higher ground, or to a place of safety, please do that,” he said.

Mr Gee said there was “more than enough police” to help protect property if people moved from their homes.

The Bureau of Meteorology has indicated that the conditions in Townsville are expected to worsen.

Flood evacuation in Townsville Flood evacuation in Townsville

The monsoon low sitting between Mt Isa and the Gulf of Carpentaria is causing the rain to move slowly over the Coral Sea coast, causing the massive deluge.

In the last 24 hours Townsville has recorded 239mm of rain.

Police have issued an emergency alert for Palm Island residents to boil their water before drinking.

Palm Island Aboriginal Shire Council has released a statement saying that the recent deluge of rain has impacted the areas clean drinking water.

Council and emergency services are urging residents to pass this information onto their family and friends.

Police have also issued a statement on behalf of the Burdekin Local Disaster Management group to say that despite images circulating that show the Haughton River Bridge being cleared of debris, it is expecred to remain closed.

Four tourists have been rescued after their campervan became entrapped by flood water in central Queensland.

The Europeans became stranded near Middleton, after one vehicle carrying two tourists drove into the water.

The flooded Diamantina River near Middleton is now hundreds of metres wide.

Two of the foreigners managed to get out of the campervan and move safely to higher ground.

Another vehicle with two other tourists arrived shortly after and contacted emergency services.

The four were rescued by a private property owner and his helicopter and taken east to Winton.

EARLIER

Officials feared predicted totals of up to 2m of rainfall — on top of an already metre-high deluge — would plunge North Queensland into a record-breaking “catastrophic” flood disaster on a 700km-long stretch of coast from Cairns to Mackay.

Disaster-declared Townsville is at the epicentre of the “unprecedented” monsoonal downpour where dozens of homes have been swamped, schools and businesses shut, and thousands of residents in flood-prone suburbs urged to move to high ground due to the risk of severe flooding.

This morning an emergency flood alert was issued for residents in areas adjacent to the Bohle River, Saunders Creek and Stoney Creek, including the suburbs Deeragun, Black River, Blue Water, Beach Holm,Yabulu, Toolakea, Jensen and Burdell. An emergency flood alert has also been issued for Hughenden west of Townsville.

Townsville City Council advised intense rainfall may affect these areas, causing fast-moving and rapidly-rising water levels and leading to flash flooding.

Residents were advised to move to higher ground if they were concerned.

Police and soldiers yesterday went door to door in five suburbs warning a metre-high wall of water may impact homes after a decision was made to further open floodgates at Ross River Dam.

The heavy rain has continued on Saturday morning, with rain totals of almost 60mm in under 2 hours recorded this morning in parts of Townsville.

A Bureau of Meteorology spokesman said 57mm of rain were recorded at Mt Margaret and the Pinnacles between 9am and 10:30am Saturday morning, and 52mm were recorded at Bhole River and Deeragun during approximately the same time frame.

ELDERLY MAN RESCUED

Suburbs at risk of flooding include Rosslea, Railway Estate, South Townsville, Idalia, Cluden, Hermit Park and Oonoonba.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services last night issued an emergency alert, with possible flooding of homes overnight.

Ross River Dam is 188 per cent full, according to a reading at 1pm yesterday.

It is the highest level in the past 10 years, surpassing the 167 per cent recorded in 2009.

Car pulled from flooded Ross River in Townsville Car pulled from flooded Ross River in Townsville

Up to 100 homes downstream from the dam were evacuated yesterday and authorities ordered power cuts to about 400 properties — with more expected — due to safety concerns as floodwaters filled the streets and inundated buildings on top of already elevated flood levels.

Flash flooding alerts sent by text repeatedly flashed as a score of suburbs came under threat and more than 80 homes were evacuated.

“We’re no strangers to big wet events in the North,’’ Mayor Jenny Hill said.

“(But) we know that we’re seeing really a record event.’’

She said a decision to open the floodgates came as the extreme weather posed a significant threat downstream.

“We haven’t taken this decision lightly, we’re looking into what could happen over the next two to three days, we know that the Ross River has hit a new milestone in terms of outflows into the ocean with a one-in-100-year event,” Cr Hill said.

State Disaster Co-ordinator Bob Gee urged hundreds of thousands of people to stay alert because “most people … will never have experienced this (extreme weather) event”.

More than 30 swiftwater rescue specialists have been deployed across the Townsville region by Queensland Fire and Emergency Services.

Townsville flood: water creeps up to houses in Railway Estate Townsville flood: water creeps up to houses in Railway Estate

Torrential rain is also falling in central Queensland, with large areas in the grip of drought receiving big falls, including Mount Isa.

Four people were last night stranded near Middleton in central western Queensland after being trapped by the flooded Diamantina River, with rescue crews unable to reach them.

It’s understood the four were uninjured and had enough food and water to stay with their vehicle but would move to higher ground.

Queensland police said it was expected the group would be helped by a local property owner who has a boat Saturday morning.

An extra four swiftwater rescue specialists are being flown from Brisbane to Mount Isa from today. Half a dozen places in the Townsville region have already had more than 1m of rain over seven days. These include upper Bluewater (1230mm), Paluma (1181mm), Upper Black River (1034mm) and Woolshed (1008mm).

Marion Callope, who lives on Windsor St in Hermit Park, was filling sandbags to try and keep her house dry.

“We are just preparing, just to be on the safe side,” she said. “Our street is pretty well right, so there’s no water up our street today but if the Ross (River) breaks its banks then you never know, so it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Ms Callope, who has lived in Townsville since 2003, said she had never seen such rain.

“They said it’s unprecedented and it certainly is,” she said. “There’s no need to panic until such time as something drastic happens.”

Major flood warnings have been issued for the Murray, Tully, Herbert, Ross, Bohle, Black, Bluewater, Haughton, Flinders and Cloncurry rivers.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the silver lining was drought-affected areas seeing some rainfall.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Vinord Anand said the monsoon trough will be very active and will stay almost stationary over Townsville for at least the next three days, with up to 400mm of rainfall a day in parts.

“This is in record territory.” Mr Anand said of great concern were total falls of another 1m to 2m of rain on top of catchments that had been already flooded by more than 1000mm in the past seven days.

“If that does happen, it’s catastrophic flooding.”