Flood at Charleville third highest since 1990

Murweh shire mayor Shaun 'Zoro' Radnedge described it as "a really good barrier trial" for the community, considering how its demographics have changed and how many new people have come to town since the last big flood event.

"It gave us the opportunity to show how the levee works to protect us," he said. "It was a really good learning curve for us all, to see where the water was flowing, and to show people how you manage your responsibilities."

The Sturt Street levee gate was closed at 3pm last Friday, when the Warrego River reached 5.9 metres.

It peaked at 6.72m on Saturday morning.

Cr Radnedge said the levee, built with federal, state and local money after the 1900 disaster, could withstand a flood of 8m.

"It's the most important structure we have," he said, commenting that he would be following up with insurance bodies now that it had proved its worth once again.

"In the 1990 flood, 1100 dwellings were affected - in 2010, 11 dwellings were impacted, when water came to the top of the levee.

"Councils here and elsewhere in the south west have put the mitigation in place and yet insurance premiums are still going up.

"We'll be asking them why that is, what their answer is."

Flood mitigation infrastructure in Charleville was built in two stages.

An earth and concrete levee on the eastern bank of the Warrego River was constructed in 2007-2008, while the Bradley's Gully Scheme was constructed in 2012-2013, comprising of four levees and a diversion channel with a new bridge over it.

The council had spent a considerable amount of money on levee maintenance work since then.

Cr Radnedge said the river height information provided by the Bureau of Meteorology was "spot on", and he thanked council staff and emergency response personnel for working through the weekend, pumping out water and working on road opening and closure advice.

One rescue on the western side of the levee was made on Saturday evening when three people were moved out of their house as waters began rising.

Cr Radnedge said the residents required evacuation each time it flooded to a certain height.

Another rise has been predicted in the Warrego River at Charleville, thanks to upstream rain on Friday but the mayor said it wasn't expected to exceed 5.3 or 5.4m, and so the flood gates had been taken down.

"Another good thing is that the top part of the shire had not had much rain prior to this - they'd been missing out - so this rain has helped them a lot," he said.

Further down, Cunnamulla is facing a major flood peak on Wednesday morning but Paroo Shire mayor Suzette Beresford said their levee bank had been protecting them for a long time.

It was hastily constructed in 1990 before the waters that smashed Charleville arrived, and has been a permanent fixture since then.

"I put the Local Disaster Management Group on alert on Saturday, to check the stormwater outlets were functioning," Cr Beresford said.

The outlets help drain water out when it rains but Cr Beresford said it didn't look like there was any rain on the horizon, for the first time in a while.

"The river has got to get to 10m before it threatens us, and the bridge is that height," she said. "Another mitigating factor is that both farms have got their pumps on, filling their storages."

She said there was a bit of variation in river height predictions from the BoM, from 8m initially to between 8 and 10m now, but said distributing run-outs below Wyandra had to be taken into account.

"The lead may reach us on Tuesday evening but we expect the main water on Wednesday morning," she said. "It's at Wyandra now."

Cr Beresford said property owners and managers along the river system knew the water was coming and had been moving stock out of the way, adding that most floodwater was beneficial in their eyes.

The Queensland Fire and Emergency Services said dozens of road closures remained in place throughout the south west, urging people to "keep track of which routes are a no-go" if they were out and about on Easter holidays.

"Remember, never drive through floodwater," they said.