Four days after cyclone Zeila tore through Western Australia's Pilbara some residents are still waiting to return home. The system crossed the coast as a category four cyclone with flood waters affecting highways and cutting off remote communities.
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00:00There's about 60 people from the remote Warralong community still here at the evacuation centre
00:07in South Headland.
00:09They were airlifted from their homes over the weekend after ex-tropical cyclone Zelia
00:14made landfall and it looked likely that it was going to flood.
00:18Now Warralong is about 120 kilometres east of where we are at the moment, further inland.
00:24It's just north of Marble Bar, which we also know has been cut off from floodwaters, as
00:29well as other communities like Nullagine.
00:32Now emergency services did go to Warralong yesterday in the chopper and they took along
00:37with them community elders to assess the damage so that they can come back here and relay
00:42that information to the residents.
00:45The emergency services minister, Stephen Dawson, confirmed yesterday that four homes had been
00:51damaged and he believed it was the accommodation of the teachers.
00:54Here's what he had to say.
00:56I understand four houses have been damaged at Warralong community.
01:00I think they are teachers' housing and so there may well be a need to get some temporary
01:04accommodation there to enable the teachers to live there, to enable the kids to go to
01:08school.
01:09So that will obviously be a priority.
01:10And then certainly on some of the stations, at this stage I think there are three dongers
01:15damaged where people may well have been living, although rapid damage assessments and the
01:20use of our team are on the ground at the moment.
01:22Now it's significant because the school is really the centre of the community.
01:26We know the Department of Communities is coordinating trades to be sent out there and to repair
01:32any damages before the residents go home.
01:35But in the meantime, the priority is really to keep the kids here busy and occupied so
01:39that they're not sitting around bored.
01:41We know they're being taken out fishing today.
01:43There's a barbecue scheduled for later and other activities organised like painting.
01:48Community services are heading back out to Warralong today with the community elders
01:53so hopefully we'll have a bit more clarity about when they can go home and hopefully
01:57it's soon.