When Water Swallows the Outback

An endless body of water, heavy rain, and stranded travelers: once again, the outback has flooded. The Stuart Highway, running north from South Australia into the Northern Territory, is submerged. The road is impassable, as is the rail line. At Glendambo, in South Australia, four-wheel-drives and other vehicles sit, their passengers waiting for the waters to subside. 

The past twelve months have been wetter than normal. The rivers in the Territory have risen, some of them bursting their banks; the floods in the South Australian outback are the once in a century type. Supply routes into the Territory have been cut off, with trucks having to reroute thousands of kilometres through Queensland and New South Wales to deliver food and goods. 

View of Glendambo, South Australia (Photo credit: Lea Pearson)

Food and goods in shopping centres have run low partly because of panic buying. To remedy this, there are now limits on how much of a certain item an individual can buy. Currently, supermarket shelves are almost bare. There is more rain forecast, and authorities have hinted at further emergency measures if extensive flooding continues and whole communities are cut off and without food.

Weather warnings of flash flooding have been issued for southern parts of the Northern Territory. All eyes are on the Barkly as a trough forms and heavy falls are predicted. In Alice Springs, the recent humidity has been stifling and a quick walk around the dry river leaves you looking like you have just got out of the shower – only you are wet and slick with sweat, not water. The smell of rain is in the air.

These parts have flooded before. Life in the remote reaches of Australia is unpredictable. Nature is not always gentle with those who depend on her. The conditions are tough, but the people are tougher. One day, these events will be memories and stories retold amongst friends.

In a land already isolated by geography, and now touched by Covid, people are tired, but not broken. The skies will clear. The sun, the burning, fierce sun will shine again in the dry. This time, having been so recently in flood, the earth will not look so dusty or so parched.

The end of this chaos will come.