FLOOD-PROOFING Airlie Creek is the key to keeping Heart Hotel businesses out of grief.

This is the view of The Deck owner Greg Lange who said it needed to be flagged as a future project.

"As a business located in the centre of town that continually gets flooded by Airlie Creek whenever there is a weather event, I would love to see it addressed,” he said.

"I (have) experienced half a dozen flood events... and it seems so unnecessary, it seems extraordinary that rectification works haven't taken place.”

LiveLife pharmacy chemist Allan Milostic said he would like to see something done.

"I've thought long and hard about how it could be done, I don't know what can happen short of digging out the channel a bit more,” he said.

Mayor Andrew Willcox said if any businesses were interested in running the issue by him, he would be happy to have engineers look at the creek.

Two months on from Cyclone Debbie, the Heart Hotel-based businesses have come a long way from having to mop mud off the floors with creek water.

Mr Lange said everyone had "rolled up their sleeves”.

"We live in a positive area and people who live here have done a great job moving forward,” he said.

Mr Milostic recalled the scenes played out in the cyclone's immediate aftermath and said significant progress had been made. "We were pulling carpets out and the floor was covered in a very thick layer of mud,” he said.

"(But) operationally we are back to normal - the water and power is back on, we are still missing carpet and need to do some repairs but functionally it's normal.”