Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred has disrupted a range of services, from electricity to airports. Here’s what we know about when essential infrastructure and services will begin to return to normal.
Electricity
As of Sunday afternoon, almost 290,000 homes and businesses were without electricity. This included almost 270,000 locations in south-east Queensland and 16,000 in northern NSW.
Energex said it had restored more than 40,000 connections on Sunday alone.
Authorities have urged people to be patient and to not expect their power to be restored in the short term. The NSW energy minister, Penny Sharpe, said it could be several days because the government did not want to put electricity teams in danger.
“We can not risk the lives of those workers,” Sharpe said. “But know that we are doing everything we can, as quickly as we can.”
In Queensland, some people may need to wait longer. The chief operating officer of Energex, Paul Jordan, said it would take longer than a week to fully restore power. He said his teams were prioritising hospitals and critical infrastructure.
Airlines and public transport
Air traffic over south-east Queensland and northern NSW began its gradual resumption on Sunday, with Brisbane and Gold Coast airports hosting a handful of passenger services.
However, many airlines, especially international carriers, were yet to resume services.
Limited public transport services resumed operating across south-east Queensland on Sunday.
Translink bus services gradually restarted across Brisbane following days when all routes were shut down. Most bus routes were operating on Sunday, except on the Gold Coast, Redlands, Logan, Moreton Bay and Toowoomba and Lockyer Valley.
All train services in south-east Queensland remained suspended on Sunday as crews worked to clear debris from tracks.
The Gold Coast light rail also remained suspended as repair teams fixed electrical damage along the network.
Ferries remained suspended, with some to resume on Monday.
Schools
The NSW education department has told more than 250 public schools in the north of the state to stay closed on Monday, with dozens of independent schools also closed. The government has a list of all affected schools online.
The NSW government is expected to update parents and families later about whether schools will remain closed on Tuesday.
In south-east Queensland, schools were set to open on Monday “where it’s safe to do so”, the premier, David Crisafulli, said on Sunday. However, schools on the Gold Coast will remain closed due to the greater extent of damage in that area.
A list of all school closures is now online. Buses will run to schools that do reopen on Monday.
Mobile coverage
As of 4pm AEST, Telstra said 164 mobile sites, 7,268 landline services and 1,849 ADSL services had been disrupted.
At 10.30am AEST, there were 243,000 outages across NBN services in south-east Queensland and northern NSW (12,000 in NSW, and 231,000 in Queensland).
Optus said 268 of its mobile sites still had no connection due to power failures in northern NSW and south-east Queensland, as of Sunday at 4pm AEST.
The company said it was “mobilising all available resources” to restore services.
Workplaces
This will depend on conditions in each area. In Queensland, emergency warnings have been lowered to watch and act levels. This allows people to move around as they normally would. But authorities are still urging people to be careful and avoid flooded regions.
Parts of northern NSW are still forecast to receive heavy rainfall, with the potential for flooding.
Read more of Guardian Australia’s Tropical Cyclone Alfred coverage:
