Tropical Cyclone Zelia has made landfall along the Pilbara coast as a strong category four system, bringing destructive wind gusts up to 290km/h amid warnings it is now too late to leave.
The cyclone, downgraded from an anticipated category five, crossed 65km east of Port Hedland just after noon AWST on Friday, travelling faster (11km/h) than authorities had warned.
Port Hedland sits on the lands of the Kariyarra people and is the second largest Pilbara town, home to more than 15,000 people.
As of 5pm local time, it was tracking south over the inlands eastern Pilbara as a category three system, with wind gusts of up to 250km/h and a warning zone extending from Wallal Downs to Whim Creek.
Port Hedland was included in the warning zone and was being hit with severe winds but had avoided the cyclone’s destructive core.
Heavy rainfall and possible flash flooding was likely across coastal and inland areas into Saturday, with flood warnings in place for the De Grey river, where minor flooding was occurring, and Pilbara coastal rivers.
The risk was expected to ease for Port Hedland and Pardoo overnight, the Bureau of Meterology’s Miriam Bradbury said, with the cyclone to “rapidly decay” as it moved inland and drop to a category two system on Saturday morning.
“Even though the system is weakening it will still pack a punch, particularly in terms of rainfall,” Bradbury said, anticipating totals of up to 200mm for much of the Pilbara to Sunday, and possible flooding.
Port Hedland local Glen Bedford, a mechanical technical officer at BHP’s port operations, said machinery and conveyor belts at the port have been tied down since Wednesday afternoon.
Bedford said the sky had been dark for more than two days, and that he remained stuck in his home with a toilet that had flooded through the LED light in the ceiling as 90km/h winds hit.
“The shops are empty, all water is gone, canned goods are gone and there is always a line at the bottle shop before a cyclone,” Bedford said.
Severe Tropical #CycloneZelia has just made landfall as a Category 5 system.
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“Everyone is now locked in their house, no one is allowed out on the streets and I think you get a fine if you get caught out driving around,” he said.
“My neighbour’s tree is down already.”
Matthew Collopy, general manager of the the bureau’s environmental prediction services, said while there was still intense danger in the region, the “storm surge risk in line with the movement of the cyclone is greatly reduced for the Port Hedland area”.
He said the system was still producing very heavy rainfall, with totals expected to be up to 300mm over the next 24 hours, and three-day totals of 500mm possible.
The system expanded over Thursday night, with the cyclone stretching to Wallal Downs along the coast, and inland through to Tom Price and Newman.
Angus Hines, a meteorologist with the bureau, said the system was expected to be very damaging.
“Category five is the top of the scale. It does not get any worse than that.
“We’re expecting destructive winds near the crossing point, we could see wind gusts of 300km/h. It’s hard to fathom how strong that is, but it can take out trees, power lines and completely destroy properties and houses.”
Since 2000, five category five cyclones have crossed the WA coast. The most recent was in April 2023, when Cyclone Ilsa broke Australian wind speed records and demolished Pardoo roadhouse.
Pardoo station owner Scott Fraser has been rebuilding the roadhouse, which is now in the path of Zelia, along with several pastoral stations.
He said they called the area around Pardoo Roadhouse “Cyclone Alley”.
BHP, a large iron ore exporter in Port Hedland, shut operations on Wednesday afternoon.
A spokesperson said its personnel were sheltering in category five rated camps and homes.
Like many residents, Steven Wright also works at the port.
He said he’d lived through at least three big cyclones and Zelia was concerning, but nothing compared with George, which hit in 2007 and was one of the most powerful Australian tropical cyclones on record.
“George was pretty hairy … I remember waking up in the middle of the night and the fence blew open, so me and my dad had to go fix [it] and as we were out there … there was a tree rolling down the road. Like a full, whole tree,” he said.
The WA premier, Roger Cook, said emergency teams throughout the country were on standby.
“We have teams deployed in Carnarvon already so that they can access the area quickly,” Cook said.
He said evacuation centres had been established in Port Hedland and Karratha, with 124 people now in the Port Hedland evacuation centre.
He said that only 900 people in Port Hedland and nearby Karratha had downloaded the Emergency WA app but he wanted more people to be connected to the emergency warning system.
WA’s Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) issued a warning on Friday morning advising residents living between Pardoo and Whim Creek and inland west of Marble Bar to shelter indoors immediately.
“There is a threat to lives and homes. You are in danger and need to act immediately,” it said.
“Shelter indoors now. It is too late to leave.”
DFES commissioner Darren Klemm told reporters on Friday that emergency services had shifted their focus to “dealing with the impacts of the destructive weather from this system”.
“It is critical that impacted communities don’t get complacent because the hazards won’t ease once the cyclone has passed.”
“Conditions after a cyclone can be just as dangerous as the cyclone itself, including damaged buildings, fallen power lines and debris. It is extremely important that people remain indoors until the warnings change.”
The Department of Communities has opened evacuation centres in South Hedland, and Stove Hill, where people were being encouraged to bring bedding with them.
Major roads across the area have been closed due to rising flood waters, including Port Hedland Road, parts of the Great Northern Highway, Marble Bar Road and Ripon Hills Road.
More than 10,000 sandbags have been handed out in the Pilbara to help people prepare their properties.
Twenty-one schools in the region have been closed.
