Outback locals concerned about food in flood-hit towns, as tourists wait for flight home

A resident of South Australia’s remote APY Lands says locals are concerned about being cut off indefinitely, after a massive downpour inundated outback roads.

The community of Pukatja — formerly known as Ernabella — has received more than 130 millimetres of rain since 6am on Monday.

Authorities have reassured the community that there are enough supplies of bare essentials in local stores to last until early next week, and are considering airdrops should floodwaters not recede.

Trucks have been unable to reach the town, which is just south of the Northern Territory border and more than 130 kilometres from the Stuart Highway, for almost a fortnight.

The highway was cut by an earlier deluge last week and, even during dry weather, Pukatja is only accessible via unsealed roads.

Pukatja artist Alison Milyika Carroll said that residents were nervous about the possibility of stores running low.

“The trucks are not coming in, bringing the food to our communities … because the road is really bad.

“We’re stuck here in our community, not going to other communities, because of this big rain.”

Pukatja has previously been isolated because of heavy downpours, but Ms Carroll said it was the “first time” she had seen rain this intense in the town.

“It’s never happened before … the roads are bad, really bad.

The Mai Wiru Region­al Stores Coun­cil Aboriginal Cor­po­ra­tion runs five stores on the APY Lands, and said all but one were currently “stocked very, very well”.

It said its two Pukatja supermarkets have enough supplies to last until early next week.

“Apart from perishables, there’s plenty of other food available,” CEO Dennis Bate said.

“We started a week ago getting alternative supplies in there.

“We are running a truck from Adelaide right up through Queensland and back down to Alice Springs, so that the first chance we get we will send a triple road train out to the APY Lands full of food.

“We are communicating with the police, with SA Health, with the state government, on a daily basis — sometimes two or three times a day — to make sure that everybody stays fed and food security is maintained on the lands.”

Mr Bate said contingency planning included possible airdrops.

Premier Steven Marshall said steps had already been taken to organise emergency supply drops to APY Lands communities, at a time when some Aboriginal communities were already having to deal with COVID outbreaks.

“The only option for getting product onto the APY Lands at the moment seems to be from the air and so we’ve contracted all the charter operators at the moment to make sure we can get critical supplies, medical personnel to support those communities,” he said.

Coober Pedy evacuation flight option

Meanwhile, further south, an evacuation flight is currently being considered for stranded tourists in the opal mining town of Coober Pedy, which is also on the Stuart Highway.

Travellers have been stuck for more than a week, and today the State Emergency Service confirmed it was looking at using an Australian Defence Force plane to fly people out.

The ADF has already delivered more than 20 tonnes of food to the town in recent days.

Tourist Kyuiyoem Kim and her family are among those who have been left stranded, after visiting Kings Canyon and Uluru.

“We’ve been stuck in Coober Pedy for seven days now,” she said.

“It was awful, to be honest. We experienced the shortage of food and lack of water.”

She said she had spoken to the Red Cross about options to get home to Adelaide, including a free flight, and organising storage for their van.

She said while floodwaters over the road had eased, the highway was expected to remain closed for the foreseeable future.

“They have to assess the road condition is OK to drive and it’s going to take another few weeks, and we can’t really stay in here for weeks,” she said.

“If they can help us to go back home, it’s going to be like a great gift for us.”