By Nina O’Brien, Disaster Resilience & Recovery Lead

While every disaster is hard to deal with, responding to a flood in a vast and remote region of Australia has unique complexity.

Right now, parts of Western Queensland are experiencing the biggest flood in more than 50 years. Some places had two years’ rain in just a couple of days. And while rain was much-needed, for many it has turned from a blessing into a curse.

For context, we are talking about nearly 54% of Queensland’s land mass, but with only 1% of the state’s population. In the main, the population of the Local Government Areas (LGA) varies between 266 and 27,836; a modest average of 5,400 people per LGA for the remote and very remote locations. At this stage, it is estimated that for remote and very remote Local Government Areas, nearly 70,000 people in total may be impacted, but they are spread across more than 927727 square kilometres. Yes, that is roughly 2.4 times the size of Victoria, by a southerner’s yardstick.

FRRR Grantees such as Western Queensland Drought Committee Inc. are playing a critical role in the response phase:

We’ve had a lot of people reaching out to either offer support or seek assistance. I have been sharing crucial information with the right parties—whether that’s directing requests for help to those who can provide it, or ensuring that people are aware of resources available to them in the affected areas. The flow of communication has been fast-paced, but necessary, as everyone tries to come together during this crisis.

As the waters recede, the clean-up has begun both on-farm and in the communities that support these vast regions. Many organisations are involved in the immediate relief and recovery phase – federal, state and local government, national response charities, local business operators and community organisations – the coordination of which often becomes complex and exhausting.

Being less visible and less resourced, it is during the medium to long term recovery that we know these communities will especially need support. Local people, government and community organisations will gradually work to return to business as usual, yet be deeply fatigued, emotionally drained and often under-resourced (both in human and financial terms).

As the immense and complex response and recovery process kicks into gear, the deep systemic issues of remote living become apparent – and will remain, long after the initial emotive rush to help. These communities will need our support, now and well into the future.

Having worked with disaster impacted communities in remote Australia, we have observed a few things over the years, which may not be top of mind for those who don’t work in this space day in, day out:

• Disaster has a unique way of shining a light on the real issues – the things long-recognised and tolerated by locals, but the structural inequality due to their geography becomes magnified for all to see.
• The disruption has a profound impact on children, families, school and business communities, and local organisations. An increased focus on ‘just getting by’ can result in less social connection, isolation and decreased wellbeing overall, over many years. It is also not uncommon for families to relocate out of an impacted region due to a downturn in paid work, unmet education needs or opportunities or a lack of suitable housing, leaving fewer volunteers to do the work in already small communities. Many on short-term funded contracts leave, leaving long-term social recovery to local community organisations.
• An increased focus on ‘returning to normal’, coupled with a necessary focus on home and family, often results in reduced time and energy for volunteering in the few, often stretched, local community organisations. These organisations themselves are often also trying to rebuild critical community-owned infrastructure, which is common in remote areas. A temporary shift in funding eligibility is sometimes required so local organisations can pay local people to do the work, so there is less reliance on local volunteers while people get back on their feet.
•  Local economies, many of which are driven by small local business and tourism ventures are highly disrupted and more economically fragile, meaning local people on casual wages have variable income. The simple economics of living in remote areas, where things already cost more than urban or regional locations, makes managing the day to day costs of living even more challenging.
• Freight costs remain higher than many other parts of Australia, at times more than the item itself; restricting access to goods and equipment needed to recover effectively.
• Specialist advice and support is often only available outside the community – leading to long wait times and inevitably higher costs when they are available, as travel costs have to be factored in. This can range from accessing structural engineers to allied health.
•  Housing, often damaged by the disaster, is either unliveable, in short supply, or liveable but with insurance claims not yet resolved. Trades people are typically thin on the ground, meaning lengthy waits for repair, further impacting the health and wellbeing of people.
• Road quality is very variable; sometimes patchy before the floods, now non-existent in some areas, where maintenance and reconstruction cost and logistics massive, further amplifying social and economic isolation.

Looking forward

The points above are just some the issues that FRRR has witnessed as we’ve supported communities long after the immediate response and flurry of activity. We have stood beside and behind disaster-affected regions for more than 25 years, distributing over $76 million for community-led disaster recovery and resilience initiatives in that time. With the help of our partners, since 2017, we have funded 141 projects to the value of over $3.7 million in this region alone, and we need support to do so again.

While flood disasters create serious challenges for remote communities in Australia, informed, considered and collaborative support can significantly aid their recovery and resilience across the disaster cycle. Long-term support is critical to creating vibrant, resilient and sustainable communities that enable our nation to thrive.

If you want to show these remote communities that they aren’t forgotten, please donate to FRRR’s 2025 Disaster Recovery Appeal, and help us to empower the grassroots community groups that underpin these communities.

A quick update: 17 April 2025

As is often the case in disasters, the numbers continue to change on a daily basis and the impact widens.

As at today; Thursday 17 April, here are some updated “Fast Facts” for what this disaster means to remote, rural and regional Australia.

Nationally, 1,902,302 people are potentially impacted across nearly 40 Local Government Areas, in 4 states; QLD, SA, NT and WA, within a vast (conservative) land mass of 1,278,220 km. (That is about 5.6 times the size of Victoria).

For regional and remote* communities, that is:

•  97% of the impacted LGAs,
• 64% of the impacted population, and
• 99.89% of the impacted land mass.

*Inner Regional, Outer Regional, Remote and Very remote as per the ABS.

We are paying particular attention to the likely recovery needs of remote and very remote people and communities where:

• 106,468 people are potentially impacted, but they are spread across a very vast land mass of 1,178,146 square kilometres.
• 15 small Local Government Areas (LGA), some with populations as small as 266 people (no, that’s not a typo, that’s an entire LGA under 300 people), and some more than 2,000km from their state capital.
• In Summary, and to highlight the unique need in this disaster compared to others: 6% of the potentially impacted population, is spread across 92% of the total land mass.
• Getting the right help, to the right location, to the right person, at the right time, and over an extended recovery time is the challenge in this disaster.