As the Daly River rose, all one resident could think as her home was flooded was 'what now?'
Miriam-Rose Baumann says she has lost count of how many times the community of Daly River, also known as Naiuyu, has flooded.
"It was kind of scary, and trying to pack things away as fast as the water was coming up ... it's up to the door handle," she told reporters at the evacuation centre 240km away in Darwin, where almost 500 residents of the town are sheltering.
"'What now?'... was going through my head: should I jump on a chopper and just get out of here and forget about everything and just let it all get washed away, or salvage as much as I could with my family and see how far we get?" Ms Baumann said.
The river regularly breaks its banks and the town becomes an island, she said, and asked why levee bank reinforcements couldn't be built, or why houses couldn't be relocated to higher ground on eight vacant lots.
"It would save heaps of money, even if it's just the school being moved," she said.
It's expected to be several more days before the community can return home.
The Top End is almost cut off by road, with a 300km stretch of the Stuart Highway between Mataranka and Elliott closed until further notice due to flooding in three places and a bogged road train.
The truck has since been freed but water levels are still too high for traffic to resume.
The Victoria Highway is closed from Timber Creek to the Western Australian border, and the Butane Highway is closed between the Armstrong and Townsend bridges.
Police say they are also scaling back a search operation for a 28-year-old man who was swept away in floodwaters near Peppimenarti on Christmas Day.
Daly River community is closed, with police and animal welfare officers collecting pets, feeding them, and taking them to a shelter on higher ground.
"Some people have been complaining about coming here in the first place, I think they were scared, and stressful ... when people have settled they're starting to think more clearly, it's okay here," Ms Baumann said.
"They miss their animals that they left behind, and their cars."
She says residents know what to expect when they eventually return home: "We know what we'll find, it will just be mud and slush, and I know we'll lose a lot of stuff," she said.
