For today’s news updates as they happen in Brisbane and beyond, follow us here.
For today’s news updates as they happen in Brisbane and beyond, follow us here.
We are hearing that there is already a rush on sandbags at the State Emergency Services depot in Newmarket.
Brisbane City Council is providing free sandbags at five locations today as it urges residents to get prepared for Cyclone Alfred:
- Darra: 38 Shamrock Road
- Morningside: 9 Redfern Street
- Newmarket: 66 Wilston Road (in the carpark off Erneton Street)
- Zillmere: 33 Jennings Street, and
- Lota: 58 Herbert Street
Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has convened the local disaster management group as Cyclone Alfred bears down on Brisbane and south-east Queensland.
“While it’s incredibly uncommon, there’s currently a very real threat a significant cyclone could hit south-east Queensland,” Schrinner said.
“I’m urging residents to do whatever they can now to get ready by cleaning up their yards, trimming tree branches and securing lose items that could become incredibly dangerous during high winds.
“I’ve also asked [the] council to ensure green waste tipping to our four Resource Recovery Centres is free until further notice to help residents prepare.
“We must also be ready for high tides, especially in our foreshore and low-lying areas, and sandbags are packed and ready for residents to prepare their homes and businesses now.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has warned that a cyclone is an imminent threat to heavily populated areas on the southern Queensland and northern NSW coastlines, putting Brisbane, Gold Coast and the densely populated coastal strip at risk.
Speaking to a meeting of national cabinet today, Albanese said he had spoken to the Queensland Premier David Crisafulli and Emergency Services Minister Jenny McAllister and reiterated federal government support would be available to the states.
“We hope of cause for the best outcome possible, but we will stand with Queenslanders at this difficult time, and we will continue to provide support just as we have for the impact of the floods that have had a devastating impact in North Queensland as well,” Albanese said.
Cyclones have crossed at the Queensland and NSW border before, and emergency services are bracing for a torrid time with up to 600 millimetres of rain in a day, coastal erosion, strong winds and local floodings, starting potentially on Thursday.
A group committed to preventing Brisbane’s Olympic stadium being built on inner-city Victoria Park is threatening to take the gloves off and amp up their activism following recent reports the 100-day review into Games venues has selected the site.
Nine News reported last week that Victoria Park had been given the nod in a draft report handed to Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie the previous weekend.
“Any stadium built in Victoria Park would be a breach of the principles of the Olympic Host Contract, which clearly states that: ‘no permanent Olympic or Paralympic construction’ should occur ‘in statutory nature areas, cultural protected areas and World Heritage sites’,” Save Victoria Park spokeswoman Sue Bremner said.
“In addition to both local and state level heritage listings, Victoria Park has deep and enduring connections to the region’s First Nations communities. It is a historic landscape that includes culturally sacred sites.
“In light of the most recent reports indicating Victoria Park is under imminent threat, we feel the time for forbearance is over.”
Bremner questioned the Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority’s independence, saying it was stacked to favour the property and development sectors.
“The GIICA board lacks critical representation from town planners, engineers, economists, and heritage, cultural and sustainable development experts,” she said.
“The Olympic Host Contract has key requirements relating to sustainability and heritage, yet the Queensland Premier has excluded such experts on this expert panel.
“We will continue to fight short-sighted plans to destroy Victoria Park-Barrambin in the name of the Olympics, using every avenue possible to delay and obstruct any future stadium developments.”
We are hearing that there is already a rush on sandbags at the State Emergency Services depot in Newmarket.
Brisbane City Council is providing free sandbags at five locations today as it urges residents to get prepared for Cyclone Alfred:
- Darra: 38 Shamrock Road
- Morningside: 9 Redfern Street
- Newmarket: 66 Wilston Road (in the carpark off Erneton Street)
- Zillmere: 33 Jennings Street, and
- Lota: 58 Herbert Street
Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has convened the local disaster management group as Cyclone Alfred bears down on Brisbane and south-east Queensland.
“While it’s incredibly uncommon, there’s currently a very real threat a significant cyclone could hit south-east Queensland,” Schrinner said.
“I’m urging residents to do whatever they can now to get ready by cleaning up their yards, trimming tree branches and securing lose items that could become incredibly dangerous during high winds.
“I’ve also asked [the] council to ensure green waste tipping to our four Resource Recovery Centres is free until further notice to help residents prepare.
“We must also be ready for high tides, especially in our foreshore and low-lying areas, and sandbags are packed and ready for residents to prepare their homes and businesses now.”
“Flooding is always the big risk,” says Premier David Crisafulli.
Speaking to the Today show this morning, the Premier said flash flooding was the major concern for authorities amid Cyclone Alfred.
“Now, of course, if you’re talking about a cyclone, you do have damaging winds and that presents challenges of course, but it is the flooding, and it is always on that southern end of the system.
“If you get the intensity of rainfall in a short period of time, you do have catchments that are already waterlogged and that will deliver flash flooding if that’s to occur.
“So now’s the time to do the preparation around your home. Now’s the time to clear the gutters and make sure that you don’t have things lying around. Now’s the time to get your family ready.”
Premier David Crisafulli says the first signs of Cyclone Alfred’s wrath have been the erosion along the southern Queensland coast.
“It’s coastal erosion first,” he told the Today show a short time ago. “And we’re seeing quite a bit of that at the moment. We’ve seen storm swells of somewhere around the order of 15 metres off the Wide Bay coast, which is really, really large.
“It then becomes those damaging winds. And on the back end of that system, it’s the heavy rainfall that presents some really, really big challenges.
“It’s not unprecedented. In the last seven years, there’s been three cyclones that have either crossed the coast or come very, very close to the coast in the southern part of the state. So it can happen.
“My message to people is the modelling from the bureau shows that this one is likely to head towards the coast. Do the little things, stay safe and people will get through it.”
Premier David Crisafulli is asking Brisbane residents to get prepared ahead of Cyclone Alfred’s arrival in two days’ time.
“I think it’s just important that we let Queenslanders know that we’re doing everything we can to prepare,” he told Nine’s Today show this morning.
“That’s important. We’re doing things like pre-positioning generators on some of those island communities. We’re talking with the telco providers to make sure that there’s bandwidth there to be able to try and get messages out in real time.
“But we need individuals to do the same, and we need people to take precautions around your home.
“Pre-prepare all of those all of the things that matter, make sure that you’ve got batteries and make sure you’ve got water and have your documents in one location. It’s the simple things that matter in a disaster. And we’re just asking people to do the preparation, as are we.”
A tropical cyclone is bearing down on parts of the Australian coast last impacted by such a storm more than 50 years ago.
Tropical Cyclone Alfred is expected to cross between the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane on Thursday as a category one or two system.
The last tropical cyclone to cross the south-east Queensland coast was Zoe in 1974.
“It’s not impossible, it is unusual, and it’s important that people be ready for it,” Premier David Crisafulli told ABC Radio this morning.
A Lithuanian rower has been rescued off the Queensland coast after he was caught in a tropical cyclone’s 130km/h winds and monster waves.
Aurimas Mockus ran into trouble about 740 kilometres east of Mackay while attempting a 12,000 kilometre Pacific Ocean crossing from San Diego to Brisbane in his solo rowing boat.
HMAS Choules, a 16,000-tonne Royal Australian Navy landing ship, rescued Mockus this morning.
He is on his way back to Australian shores after a two-day wait in the turbulent ocean waters due to Tropical Cyclone Alfred, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.
We’ll bring you more on this shortly.
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