‘Can you ever be ready for a force of nature like this?’
From my house I can normally see the great heft of Wollumbin/Mt Warning, which hovers over the region.
Now it is gone, lost in rain and cloud.
The town is deserted. When the wind is at its most ferocious, the trees in my garden are bent backwards.
There is a silence where normally there would be birdsong.
I have done everything I can to be ready for Cyclone Alfred, but can you ever be ready for a force of nature like this?
The uncertainty of what is going to happen is stressing everyone out. My house is an old wooden house which was not built for cyclones. So far it is holding up, but it has never been tested like it is about to be.
The waiting for something very bad is a mixture of denial and dread.
Susan Chenery – Murwillumbah, northern New South Wales
‘Will we have enough food, will we flood, will we have power?’
The wait is the worst.
The winds are already gusting at gale force, the place is soaked, broken branches and other debris litter some areas and the beaches are beyond wrecked – but we’re still waiting.
For some, taking the advice to bunker down at home until after Alfred has left the building is either already proving too tedious, or is simply being ignored. The pockets of the coast where it’s still – sort of – business as usual are doing a roaring trade.
On Chevron Island, just over the river from what is now almost the ghost town of central Surfers Paradise, the normally quiet little local, the Chevron Tavern, is packed. The bloke behind the counter at the adjacent bottle shop reckons he has never had a busier day, and is struggling to find time to restock shelves and fridges.
But we’re still waiting; waiting with a mix of anxiety bordering on impatience. Anxiety because no one knows just how bad things will get in the next 72 hours – will we have enough food, will we flood, will we have power (a redundant question for thousands of homes already blacked out), and will my house make it through intact?
And impatience because we’ve prepared as best we can – pantries stocked, candles and torches handy, loose objects secured and windows taped up to minimise the possibility of flying glass – and everyone wants the damn thing just to be over with. Which is probably why the few licensed premises still open look more like a sports bar on State of Origin night than a suburban pub on a rainswept Friday morning.
Yes there are the inevitable idiots playing in killer waves and driving around sightseeing. For most of us though it’s like Waiting for Godot, but unlike the Beckett play, Alfred’s arrival is imminent.
Paul Syvret – Gold Coast
‘Has anybody checked the chicken nuggets?’
We were prepared for Tropical Cyclone Alfred until suddenly we weren’t.
By Tuesday night everything was ready. Bins tied down, some of our rogue bamboo and tree branches hacked off. Anything remotely valuable shifted from under the house. Enough food to get us through until the weekend.
We’ve done this twice before, when my partner and I were living in Darwin. We had a couple of hairy nights, but ultimately missed the worst. Tropical Cyclone Alessia came through as a tropical low system, and passed well south of Darwin. Severe Tropical Cyclone Nathan briefly seemed menacing but ultimately weakened well before reaching us.
When we left Darwin, we donated our unused cyclone kit to a friend.
They tell you to plan for three days, but that’s trickier than it sounds when – within hours of learning that Alfred might head towards Brisbane – the supermarkets were stripped of bottled water and tins of beans.
We’ve done what we can. Filled every water bottle in the house from the tap. Stocked up with food that would last us until Saturday.
But on Thursday morning, a problem. We’d been expecting Alfred the following night. Now, the Bureau of Meteorology was predicting the tropical cyclone might be delayed 24 hours, or possibly longer.
Did we have enough supplies for an extra day or two? Has anybody checked the chicken nuggets? Shit!
The scenario was unthinkable: spending the next few days locked up with the three-year-old equivalent of a tropical cyclone (and his older brother) without a sufficient supply of the only thing he will reliably eat. We had a day’s supply at best. Fortunately, our freezer is now stocked. We’re cooking a load ahead of time in case the power goes.
Neither of our kids seem to grasp what they’re in for. The wind is picking up and the rain is getting heavier. The five-year-old, otherwise obsessed with the weather, has been talking about “tornadoes”. He’s just asked for the shutter on the skylight to be closed.
Ben Smee – Brisbane
‘It’s hard to stay still and do nothing’
Tree branches flying, horizontal rain coming in thick sheets, winds gusting so strong I’m thinking the windows might shatter inwards.
Looking at the big gum swinging back and forth over the house and hoping it has deep roots. Calculating where in the house might be safe so if it goes we won’t be crushed – possibly overdramatising it, but here in the northern rivers our trees haven’t been cyclone-tested. We have no internet, no power, which means little distraction from the anxiety of waiting for Alfred.
But it also means I can no longer stare at the big spinning red and purple vortex hundreds of kilometres wide heading for the coast.
It’s good to get a break from windy.com but we’re still very on edge, hoping that Alfred making landfall will bring some relief.
I’m between Byron bay and Bangalow, an area that understands big storms, but I haven’t seen anything like this. Or heard anything like this. I once stood in a sound booth at the museum and art gallery in Darwin to listen to a soundtrack of Cyclone Tracy and last night I was back in that booth. There wasn’t much sleep. But things could be much worse. Everyone in this region feels so deeply for our neighbours in Lismore, facing this again after the floods that devastated the community three years ago. It’s heartbreaking to think of what they are going through right now. It’s hard to stay still and do nothing.
Lucy Clark – Bangalow, NSW north coast
‘For some, there is a sense of deja vu’
The northern rivers started early. As colleagues in Brisbane breezily reported the quiet before the storm, down here a state of emergency had already begun.
As Cyclone Alfred lay offshore, wind whipped through the region on Wednesday and the power was cut to homes in the hinterland – including ours. It was restored that night but cut off after huge gusts throughout the night.
Since then trees have already fallen, flooding is beginning to cut roads. Amid wind and rain people have been making preparations. For those who still have access, Facebook groups have been a place for sharing tips and advice – with sometimes questionable degrees of accuracy. Techniques for taping windows have been popular, along with advice about where to obtain generators for those who can afford such luxuries.
For some, there is a sense of deja vu. Three years ago, Lismore drowned in a non-cyclonic event and still hasn’t fully recovered. When an evacuation order went out on Thursday night for south Lismore, there was a collective sense of dread. A string of communities along the coast have since been told to evacuate, or are preparing to evacuate. And Alfie is yet to arrive.
Royce Kurmelovs, northern rivers, NSW
‘Watching this reminds me of those dark few days in late February 2022’
Three years ago, my apartment block was one of the thousands along the Brisbane River inundated by the floods that devastated south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales. It was the second time I’d been displaced in a bit over a decade, and I was done. In the end, I left Brisbane entirely. I moved to Maleny, on the Sunshine Coast hinterland.
Maleny is about 500 metres above sea level. A woman threw me a look the other day when she asked me if I was prepared for Alfred.
“Well, I just question everything. That’s all I’ll say,” she said darkly.
I didn’t ask what, exactly, her question was. If I had, I’d have been there all day – and there were things to do.
We’re as prepared as we need to be, but not too concerned, despite track maps showing the system is likely to pass closely. We’re on a creek, but high enough not to worry. Which is a good thing, because it’s a wet place: we had close to three and a half metres of rain last year. I’d rather be here than my old apartment block on the Brisbane River, though.
Still, watching this reminds me of those dark few days in late February 2022. You knew it was coming. And yet nothing could prepare you for the reality.
Andrew Stafford – Sunshine Coast
Read more of Guardian Australia’s Tropical Cyclone Alfred coverage:
