There’s no sugarcoating it. Cyclone Alfred is coming, and four million people are collectively holding their breath, writes 1News Australia correspondent Aziz Al Sa'afin.
I’ve spent the past 24 hours watching a city brace for impact. The supermarket shelves? Stripped bare. The airports? Empty.
I landed on the last flight into the Gold Coast. Shortly after, the flight board turned red as every flight in and out was cancelled. That’s when all hell broke loose. As I made my way out, I watched travellers scramble, checking their phones, trying to figure out their next move.
In one local Woolies, where I joined hundreds of others for my evening shop, an announcement blared over the intercom: “We are closing in 30 minutes and will not reopen until Saturday.”
It’s safe to say the panic set in. Suddenly, I was part of the chaos running around the aisles like a dodgem car.
And yet, some people still don’t believe it.
It’s “only” a Category 2 storm, right? It’s "just hype". And now that landfall may be been delayed, "it's not even coming till later now", so maybe it’s time to relax?
No. Those are dangerous assumptions.
As one local told me, don’t let the sunshine fool you.
What many people don’t realise is that cyclone categories only measure wind strength, not the storm surge, not the relentless rainfall and not the catastrophic flooding it can bring.
And that’s exactly what makes Alfred so unpredictable.
So, what can we expect from the triple threat?
Authorities say first is storm surges up to one metre higher than normal tides. The worst-case scenario is they come right as high tide hits.
The second big warning comes in the form of hundreds of millimetres of rain in just a few days.
We’re talking anywhere between 400mm to 700mm in some catchments and more than enough to flood homes and roads.
Lastly, the damaging winds are strong enough to bring down trees and power lines and turn any object into “missile-like” projectiles.
Put four million people in the firing line of all three, and now you can start to understand what emergency services are so worried about.
New Zealanders here are watching and waiting, too, just like everyone else.
As I stood in the supermarket, trying to make my final decision on what to stock up on, I ran into Lance Te Koeti from Christchurch. He was there with his wife and young daughter, their faces mirroring the same unease I felt.
Their Gold Coast holiday has suddenly turned into a Gold Coast hunker-down which is a reality many travellers are now facing. And with the airport shut, there’s nothing they can do but wait it out and try to stay as safe as possible.
Also bunkering down is former Silver Fern Katrina Rore, who moved to Brisbane just over a year ago. For her, the worst part is the uncertainty. Right now, there’s a lot of it going around.
"It’s the unknown that’s getting to people," she said. "We know something bad is about to hit, but exactly where and when is still up in the air. The sandbag lines are out the gate, the supermarkets are chaotic, and people are preparing for the worst."
Fellow Kiwi Millie Toal admitted she wasn’t too worried at first, but that changed very quickly.
"I guess because I’m from New Zealand, we get cyclone warnings all the time that don’t amount to much," she told me. "But when they started shutting down unis, schools, and bars, that’s when I realised — okay, this is serious".
She’s taken advice from her mum, a Townsville local who knows a thing or two about storms: “Fill the bathtub with water so you can flush the toilet if the power goes out."
Funnily enough, it was the same advice my boss gave me before I headed into this potential disaster zone, along with the usual essentials, of course (chocolate included).
Alfred’s landfall keeps shifting
Cyclone Alfred was expected to crash into the Queensland coast late Thursday or early Friday, coinciding with a high tide, but new models out on Thursday morning show it slowing down and that it could now stall near Moreton Bay and not make landfall until Saturday.
But that means the flooding risk just got even worse.
Even before this thing had properly arrived, parts of the Gold Coast were already going under.
Waves are smashing the coastline, cars are getting swept away, and the roads are turning into rivers.
To put it in perspective, Queensland hasn’t seen a cyclone of this scale make landfall in 50 years.
In New South Wales, Premier Chris Minns warned the flooding could be on the same scale as the devastating 2022 Lismore disaster.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the Australian Defence Force is already on standby, bracing for the worst.
For now, all anyone can do is prepare, bunker down, and wait. But one thing is clear, trust the advice because there’s no downplaying what’s coming.
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