At least 15,000 people were ordered to evacuate, tens of thousands more were without power and flood rescues were already underway in a swath of Australia’s eastern coast in the track of Tropical Cyclone Alfred, projected to be the first to make landfall in the region in decades.
Alfred was expected to come ashore Saturday morning near Brisbane, the capital of Queensland state and home to about 2.7 million people. As of Friday afternoon, it was hovering about 80 miles off the coast of the city and already causing flooding with abnormally high tides.
To the south, in the neighboring state of New South Wales, local officials said about 29,000 dwellings were considered at risk of flooding as of Friday afternoon, with about 15,000 people in the state under evacuation orders. The authorities counted about 38,000 in the state without power and 46,000 in Queensland.
Officials warned that the storm’s slow churn westward, moving about 5 miles per hour on Friday, could amplify its impact on coastal communities by prolonging the rainfall and storm surges. Among the areas threatened by the storm is Lismore, a small city about eight hours north of Sydney which suffered devastating floods in 2022 in which 22 people died.
On Friday, Alfred was already hitting coastal areas with damaging wind gusts up to 75 miles per hour. And, forecasters warned, there was a danger of life-threatening flash-flooding even before it made landfall. It would be the first cyclone to come ashore along the southeastern coast of the state of Queensland since 1974, according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology.
Hundreds of schools and multiple airports were already closed and public transportation suspended in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales earlier in the week. Grocery store shelves have been emptied by shoppers and people formed long lines to get sandbags as the cyclone, originally expected to remain offshore, changed course and began advancing toward land.
Even as authorities were warning about the danger ahead, the record swell brought droves of devoted surfers to the coast in recent days, along with crowds to watch them ride the cyclone-powered waves.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Thursday that he would approve emergency federal funds for the states of Queensland and New South Wales for post-storm recovery efforts.
