Tasmanians around the state are cleaning up after days of battering from constant downpours and wild winds that have brought down trees and powerlines.
Several rivers from the north to the south reached their peaks on Monday, creating minor and moderate flooding in communities.
The sole major flood warning is for the River Derwent below Meadowbank Dam which has reached a new record flooding level of more than 8 metres and is expected to peak overnight into Tuesday.
The flooding is hitting the rural townships of Macquarie Plains, Glenora and Bushy Park.
There is forecast to be a reprieve in the weather on Tuesday with no rain and only isolated wind gusts of concern around the Western Tiers and Mole Creek.
'Absolutely horrific' winds
Chris Kilby, a farmer in Westwood in northern Tasmania, was picking through the damage the destructive winds had done to his property overnight into Monday.
He said the winds were the worst he had ever seen.
"It was absolutely horrific, [the] wind and rain," he said.
Inspecting the property on Monday morning, Mr Kilby found an irrigator fallen over, part of a shed roof blown off, and trees ripped up from the roots.
"The afternoon's going to be spent tidying all of that up and making it safe for the next storm front that's coming through," he said.
He estimated the damage to the irrigator alone to cost $100,000.
He was hopeful insurance would cover it, but worried about how long it would take to access the parts to repair it.
Residents clearing up after fallen trees
Near Evandale, also in northern Tasmania, Mark Smith spent Monday cutting up fallen trees and dealing with flooding in his yard.
It wasn't the rain or a rising river that caused the flooding.
A sodden tree fell after all the rain and smashed a water main.
"I was just going to work this morning and thought I better do something about it," he said.
"I cut all the tree up and finally got to the water main, got the water turned off — which made a hell of a difference."
He is running a generator while TasNetworks works to restore power to tens of thousands of properties around the state, including his.
"I can't see this getting rectified shortly," Mr Smith said.
Emergency crew injured
Emergency Management Minister Felix Ellis announced on Monday that two road workers who were responding to the storm damage were severely injured.
He said the workers had "quite severe although not life-threatening injuries", but not further details about the incident were released.
Since Friday, about 700 state emergency service (SES) volunteers have worked in shifts around the clock to assist the community.
Tens of thousands of homes and businesses are still without power, according to the TasNetworks outage page, with most of the affected customers in the state's north and north-west, which bore most of the destructive winds.
Ouse River peaks
Colleen Onn has been an Ouse resident for 10 years.
In that time she has seen three floods in the Central Highlands town.
On Monday, she checked on the rising floodwaters in the Ouse River a number of times and hoped to avoid an evacuation warning.
"I hate getting evacuated … [especially] when you've got pets," she said.
"I've got a cranky cat, and he doesn't like being moved."
A watch and act alert for Ouse remained in place on Monday evening, but the weather bureau said the river peaked at minor flood level earlier in the day at 3.35 metres.
Historic distillery inundated
Like other properties bordering the River Derwent upstream, historic Tasmanian whisky and gin distillery Lawrenny Estate, above Lake Meadowbank at Ouse, became isolated by floodwaters.
Owner Ross Mace told the Tasmanian Country Hour the Derwent River had broken its banks and was running through the distillery.
He and three other residents were sheltering in the main house on the property.
"The biggest thing will be the clean up after. We've got water flowing throughout the distillery at the moment," he said.
"That's just something we've got to see what damage is done at the end."
Mr Mace said he and three others were sheltering in the main house on Monday and were safe. They were continuing to monitor the water levels closely.
"The river's rising. That's the worrying part. We don't know how much more water has got to come down," he said earlier on Monday.
Tropical animals need generator to keep warm
The Wings Wildlife Park in the state's north-west has been running generators to keep tropical animals warm.
The park at Gunns Plains, south of Penguin, has been without power for much of the past week.
Owner Colin Wing said it was costing "a fortune".
He said the cost of running generators to keep animals comfortable had been challenging.
"We've got meerkats, marmosets and capybaras … our local animals are OK because this is the conditions they're in, but we've got tropical animals so we've got to keep them warm," he said.
Many of the park's staff live on site and Mr Wing said food from the cafe was going to feeding staff.
This was not the first time the park has suffered through challenging circ*mstances, after experiencing significant damage during the 2022 flooding less than two years ago.
Mr Wing said in future he would look to buy a generator large enough to power the site.
Loading...
