Early wind and rain from a rare tropical cyclone began lashing part of eastern Australia on Thursday as schools were closed, public transport was stopped and despꦏerate residents got around shortag🐈es of sandbags by buying potting mix.
Tropical Cyclone Alfred appro♈aches eastern Australia, causing evacuations, school closures, and transport shutdowns.
Early wind and rain from a rare tropical cyclone began lashing part of eastern Australia on Thursday as schools were closed, public transport was stopped and despꦏerate residents got around shortag🐈es of sandbags by buying potting mix.
Tropical Cyclone Alfred is forecast to cross the Queensland state coast somewhere between the Sunshine Coast region and the city of Gold Coast to the south early Saturday, Bureau of Meteorology manager Matt Co꧂llopy said.
Between the two tourist strips is the state capit𝔉al Brisbane, Australia's third-most populous city which will host the 2032 Olympic Games.
“The wind impacts, we're already seeing those start to develop on the exposed locations along our coast with gusts reaching 80-to-90 kph (50-to-56 mph). We are expecting t🌟hose to continue to develop,” Collopy told reporters in Brisbane.
Alfred is expected to become the first cyclone to cross the co💟ast near Brisbane since Cyclone Zoe hit the Gold Coast in 1974 and brought widespread flooding.
𝕴Cyclones are common in Queensland's tropical north but are rare in the state's temperate and densely populated southeast corner that borders New South Wales state.
More🔥 thไan 4 million people lie in the cyclone's path.
Alfred was 280 kilometers (170 miles) east of Brisbane🔯 and moving west Thursday with sustained winds near the center of 95 kph (59 mph) and gusting to 130 kph (81 mph), Collopy said.
The storm is expected to maintain its wind strength before hitting land. But the greatest fears are for the expected flooding over a wide area. Modeling shows that up to 20,000 homes in Brisbane, a city largely built on a river floodplain, could exp𒉰erience some level of flooding.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said 660 schools in southern Queensla🐼nd and꧋ 280 schools in northern New South Wales were closed Thursday as weather conditions worsened.
The federal goveꦰrnment had delivered 310,000 sandbags to Brisbane and more were o🍸n the way, Albanese said.
“My message to people, whether they be in southeast Queensland orꦰ northern New South Wales, is we are there to su🔯pport you. We have your back,” Albanese told reporters in the national capital Canberra.
A shortage of sandbags in Brisbane, a city of more than 3 million people, led some to𓃲 buy sacks of potting mix as an alternative, according to Damien Effeney, a chief executive of a rural supplies business.
“I think between availabilityﷺ and the time that people have to queue to get sandbags, they're just making the easier choice and grabbing potting mix,” Effeney told Australian Broadcasting Corp., adding one customer bought 30 bags from his store at Samford on Brisbane's northwest fringe.
Public transport inꦰ the affected area was stopped from Thursday and hospitals were limited to performing emergency surgeries until the danger had passed.
Strong winds had cut power toಞ 4,500 homes and businesses in northern New South Wales on Thursday, officials said.
Rivers were rising across the region due to r🐎ain and emergency teams expected to soon start evacuating residents from low-lying areas on the New South Wales side of the border.
The coast near the border has beꦦen battered for days by abnormally high tides and seas. A 12.3-meter (40-foot) high wave recorded off a popular Gold Coast beach on Wednesday night was a record for the area, officials said.
Residents in the cyclone's path gained an additional 24 hours to batten down after meteorologists revised their forecast from Wednesday of the cyclone m💖aking land late Thursday or early Friday.
But the cyclone's slower progress towar🦹d the c🍰oast had a downside, meteorologist Jane Golding said.
“We'll have longer for the rain t🉐o fꦆall and the wind to do the damage,” Golding said.