http://au.news.yahoo.com/queensland/...risis-worsens/
A crocodile has been sighted on a flooded suburban Rockhampton street as the swollen Fitzroy River approaches a revised 8.7 metre peak, forcing the closure of the airport until possibly Wednesday next week.
A resident spotted the saltwater animal lurking around Stack Street, at Koongal, on Saturday morning and reported it to police, a Rockhampton Regional Council spokeswoman told AAP.
The area where the crocodile was seen, on the northern side of the river, is only two blocks away from the flooded Lakes Creek Supermarket. The sighting comes as authorities brace for the Fitzroy to reach 8.7 metres by early Sunday morning.
The revised flood peak is below the 9.2 metre level reached in 2011 but it still forced the closure of Rockhampton Airport on Friday night.
The central Queensland city's deputy mayor Tony Williams said the airport was likely to remain closed until possibly Wednesday, following the weather bureau's updated flood prediction.
"We would have been on the home stretch today," he told reporters.
"It has been a little bit disheartening because we were planning - all the agencies were doing their best to keep everything open and business as usual."
On Thursday, Mr Williams told AAP the city would have operated "business as usual" if the flood peak had stayed at 8.5 metres.
But on Saturday, he conceded that Rockhampton needed new flood gauges in place for future inundation, and left open the possibility of relocating homes away from low-lying, flood-prone areas.
"It's something that we really need to consider and look at that in our future planning," he said.
The main southern access road into Rockhampton - the Yeppen crossing over the Bruce Highway - is also being closed again to light vehicles on Saturday night from 6pm (AEST) because of visibility issues.
Police Superintendent Ron van Saane said that while water levels over the road had reached 20cm, authorities were more concerned about light cars getting swept away.
"It's actually not the height that's the issue, it's the pace of the water," he told reporters.