"In Charleville, the '96 flood was about this size and it cost $80 million," he said. "In 2012, we saved that money.

"If Suncorp had paid for their construction, they'd have come out in front."

The cost of the Charleville and Augathella levees was shared among the council and State and Federal governments.

Maranoa Regional Mayor Rob Loughnan said building a flood-proof replacement for the Mitchell Bridge would have to proceed in "double quick time". "The Warrego Highway will end at Roma," he said. "The cattle industry west of Mitchell will be cut off from the Roma Saleyards. They will be trucking cattle south to Begonia and across to Roma on a dirt road. It will be an economic disaster for the whole region."

Mr Loughnan said another priority would be to transform a proposed permanent Roma flood levee from a recently completed plan into reality and to start a similar planning process at Mitchell. He thanked the Government for its design work. A total of 290 homes were inundated in Roma and 289 in Mitchell.

"We need to think about lifting the level of road access to the RSL, which is the evacuation centre at Mitchell, so that it cannot be cut off," he said.

Of 54 homes inundated at St George, Ms Stewart said all but a handful could have been saved if a council plan for a $3m permanent levee had been enacted.

"It was a plan for a wall to protect the town at river heights of up to 14.5 metres," she said. "It would have been right for the flooding we have seen."

Instead, the State Government paid twice for the construction of temporary levees in 2011 and 2012, as well as the hurried evacuation of St George residents via Moonie.

"I cannot even guess what all that has cost," she said. "If you ran a private business like that you'd be out the back door."

Ms Stewart said repeated flood events and damage to homes and infrastructure in Balonne and other council areas had not produced new flood gauges in the Maranoa River.

"We need better planning for permanent structures, not just band-aids when there is a disaster," she said.

"I was getting reports of homesteads upstream with water up to their eaves," she said. "These are places that have never been flooded before, but the Bureau of Meteorology could not predict a river height until the water reached Old Cashmere. That's a day away. What sort of warning is that?"

She said serious damage to cotton crops was caused when water from the Maranoa River broke into an old water course, the Gleer, west of St George.

"Last year, the Balonne Shire produced 600,000 bales of cotton," she said. "That's a big contribution to the national economy, worth about $500m.

Western Downs Regional Mayor, Ray Brown, said $90m worth of damage was caused to infrastructure across a large part of the council area by floods in 2010 and 2011, but the 2012 flood crisis was largely confined to its southern part.

He said flood crises such as the event at Condamine twelve months ago revealed the need for plans to provide every township with at least one high-level access route to ensure ready evacuation is always an option for residents.

"There has got to be a substantial increase in expenditure on rural roads," he said. "There is a huge agricultural sector out here and it is worth a lot of money. It is disturbing that after 10-12 years of drought, we have gone from one extreme to another.

"Every time there is a flood event, there are blockages in the network. We can't resupply our towns or get our produce to market. The energy sector is immobilized. The economy is the big loser. We should not spend our money on band-aids. We have to be smarter about the way our taxpayer's dollars are spent."