AS the Fitzroy River peaked on Friday in the beef capital of Australia, cattle farmers upstream were counting the cost as water levels gradually receded.
Beef cattle producers - already battling an outbreak of Bovine Johne's Disease - are now seeing their losses deepen with the second flood in just two years.
Darren Kent, a third generation Brahman producer from Rannes, 100km west of Rockhampton, was already expecting to lose $250,000 in the first three months of 2013, but that was before the floods.
Now, he faces going further into the red, as floodwaters inundating 40 per cent of his property gradually dissipate.
"You just keep going, I guess," Mr Kent told AAP on Friday.
"We reckon you don't have to be mad but it helps."
His 971 hectare property, on the junction of the Don and Dee rivers that feed into the Fitzroy, was drenched in four days with more than half the average annual rainfall, following three months of drought.
This time, unlike early 2011, his 700 cattle had little grass feed on the ground.
Mr Kent expects it will take three months to clean up from the floods.
Beef farmers at Jambin, Gracemere, Bajool and the Boyne Valley are also affected, an AgForce spokeswoman said.
Rockhampton deputy mayor Tony Williams was expecting the 8.5 metre Fitzroy River peak to flood up to 1100 backyards.
While it's shy of the 9.2 metre peak reached in early 2011 - which flooded 200 homes and businesses - the ferocity of Oswald's cyclonic winds could be more costly for the beef capital city.
"The flood was not the issue with a lot of the damage - it was the weather event we experienced prior to the flood," Mr Williams told reporters on Friday.
The floodwaters are expected to recede in the next 24 to 36 hours.
The Bruce Highway southwest of Rockhampton, which was closed in 2011, is remaining open this time despite 10cm of water over the Yeppen Crossing.
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