Gascoyne flood: Growers forced to wait for flood waters to recede to assess damage

The financial hit to Carnarvon fruit and vegetable crops will not be known for some time, with anxious growers forced to wait for flood waters to recede before they can assess the damage. The region provides much of Perth’s winter crop, including tomato, capsicums, eggplant, bananas, watermelon and rockmelon. Carnarvon Growers Association manager Nick Cuthbert said it would likely be three to four days before growers get a handle on what the damage is. However, he said they were a “fairly resilient bunch” and focused on getting on with the job at hand. “Most of these properties are still underwater, so there’s not a whole lot they can do at this point,” Mr Cuthbert added. An intense tropical low caused heavy rains in WA’s Gascoyne region over the weekend, with large swathes of the Mid West still submerged after the weather system unleashed 200mm of rain. The weather event, dubbed a “one in ten year flood”, saw water levels reach 7.1m on Saturday, flooding parts of Carnarvon. VegetablesWA chief executive officer John Shannon said that while growers had experienced worse events previously, the impact would still be felt across the broader community. “It does not detract from the distress growers will be going through when it comes on top of other challenges they’re facing, such as the availability of labour,” he said. A fortified flood mitigation network was installed in Carnarvon in 2013 after devastating floods three years earlier.