More rain is forecast in South Australia’s far north this week as up to 80 travellers remain stranded on the Oodnadatta Track.
Key points:
- Around 80 people remain stranded on the Oodnadatta Track
- Gas and food supplies are running low
- Aircraft are unable to fly in the region, to check on stranded travellers, due to the weather conditions
A recent downpour in the state’s outback has caused a significant number of vehicles and caravans to become bogged on the remote track.
Woomera recorded a total of 68.6mm of rain on Monday and the Bureau of Meteorology has forecast more heavy rain and thunderstorms for Friday.
William Creek publican Trevor Wright said some people were stuck out on the roads for up to three days.
“We had more rain last night, which has made the roads worse,” he said.
Mr Wright said even more travellers could be stranded on outback roads but low cloud in the region has meant aircraft have been unable to fly overhead to check.
He said trucks could not reach the town to transport essential supplies due to road closures.
“We’re looking at where we are with food.
“I think people are just trying to work out what decisions they have to make given there’s more rain on Friday coming.”
Change of travel plans
Andrew Eagle was travelling from the Northern Territory back to his home in Melbourne with his wife before he became stranded three days ago.
“We were planning on staying here for a night and then Leigh Creek for a night but, yeah, now we’ve spent three days and maybe four here,” he said.
Mr Eagle said outback camaraderie had seen both locals and travellers picking people up who were stuck on the roads and bringing them back into town.
“With [poor] phone reception, the government could do a bit in the area to help,” he said.
“I don’t have to start work until Monday.
Planning for the future
Mr Wright said more needed to be done to prepare for situations like this now that people were freely travelling between interstate borders without COVID-19 restrictions.
“What these places need with these rain events, that they’re saying are going to be quite common, is that they need road crews that are available to clean up these roads as quickly as possible,” he said.
Mr Wright said there needed to be fast and reliable phone coverage infrastructure put in place so people could communicate effectively with authorities if they got stranded.
“We desperately need to get these microcells that Telstra have cleaned up so that you can actually have data on them,” he said.
“People are trying to pay bills and organise airfares and everything and they’re just timing out on them. So, [they’re] very frustrated.
“Luckily we’ve got one of the Starlink [communication satellites] from Elon Musk, so we’re giving everyone access to it for free.
“And hopefully that’ll solve the problem — in the short term.”
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