6 days ago
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Millions of people are sheltering from Tropical Cyclone Alfred as it crashes into the coast of south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales bringing destructive winds and heavy rain.
The slow-moving weather system was finally expected to make landfall after speeding up overnight on Friday and into Saturday morning as it moved towards Brisbane.
The storm was downgraded to a category one as it crossed North Stradbroke Island late on Friday night and headed into Moreton Bay.
The latest update from the Bureau of Meteorology was that it would make landfall around Bribie Island north of Brisbane on Saturday morning and drop to a tropical low system before heading inland.
Destructive wind gusts of up to 150km/h are possible around the exposed island coasts and coastal locations.
At 3am AEST Alfred was 50km north-north-east of Brisbane and 100km north of Gold Coast, according to the bureau.
Residents in Brisbane were advised by the city council to take shelter, while people in parts of the Northern Rivers of NSW were told to seek higher ground because of the risk from flooding.
Gold Coast residents have been urged to stay home and “take shelter”, potentially for days, in a string of alerts from Broadbeach to Jacob Well and South Stradbroke Island.
As a search continued for a man washed into flood waters in northern New South Wales, more than 200,000 homes in Queensland and NSW were without power on Friday evening as Tropical Cyclone Alfred crawled towards the coast. Telecommunications were also knocked out for many.
Energex, south-east Queensland’s electricity distribution network provider, said there were 227,000 customers affected by outages in the region.
“The slow-moving system is actually worse for our city,” the Gold Coast acting mayor, Donna Gates, said.
“It increases the risk of heavy rain over an extended period. So this again is a concern in relation to flooding.”
A string of emergency warnings were sent out on Friday afternoon.
Emergency alerts were issued for the entire Redland city area, and in the Gold Coast from Broadbeach to Jacobs Well and South Stradbroke Island.
An alert issued by the Redland city council for islands in Moreton Bay ordered residents to “take shelter now in the strongest part of the building you are in”.
Meanwhile, thousands of people in parts of the NSW northern rivers were told to leave their homes on Thursday night, including residents in Lismore’s CBD, north and south. The community was devastated by flooding in 2022.
A man is missing after his four-wheel-drive was washed off a bridge by fast-moving flood waters north-east of Dorrigo in northern NSW on Friday afternoon.
He left the car and secured himself to a tree but was swept away about 3pm, NSW police said. He is still missing.
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The Queensland premier, David Crisafulli, said there had been rainfall totals of about 200mm in the last 24 hours in some parts of south-east Queensland and much more was expected.
Major flood warnings have been issued for the Logan and Albert rivers. Expected rainfall totals over 24 hours are upward of 300mm to 400mm as the system crosses.
The acting Queensland police commissioner, Shane Chelepy, said there had not yet been loss of life or missing persons in Queensland.
Some Gold Coast suburbs have lost telecommunication coverage after 26 mobile base stations lost power and ran out of battery, he said. Those locations include Bilinga, Bilinga North, Binna Burra, Burleigh Waters, Coolangatta, O’Reilly’s, Parkwood, Bundle, Reedy Creek, Mudgeeraba, Karumba and Springbrook.
“The moment it is safe to do so, our telcos, which we have been engaged with, will get into those errors and try to get generation to those stations,” he said.
Matthew Collopy, a senior forecaster with the bureau, said Alfred would most likely cross the mainland coast as a category 1 cyclone.
“Destructive wind gusts up to 150km/h are possible about the exposed island coasts and coastal locations near and to the south of the system,” he said.
“As the cyclone moves across Moreton Bay islands, it is expected to weaken from a category 2 to a category 1 system. That will mean that destructive winds are unlikely for Brisbane itself, but damaging wind gusts to 120km/h are expected and they will develop quickly as the system approaches.”
Flood watches remain in place from the Mary River through Sunshine Coast creeks and rivers, the Pine and Caboolture rivers, Gold Coast creeks and rivers, as well as the upper and lower Brisbane and the Condamine, McIntyre and Weir rivers. A major flood warning is current for the Logan rivers.
Read more of Guardian Australia’s Tropical Cyclone Alfred coverage:
