Some went to the movies while others played on the beach. Another was fishing while waiting for the pub to open. It was hard to imagine a tropical cyclone was looming.
Some went to the movies while others played on the beach. Another was fishing while waiting for the pub to open. It was hard to imagine a tropical cyclone was looming.
By Savannah Meacham, William Davis and Catherine Strohfeldt
March 7, 2025 — 8.21pm
Some went to the movies while others played on the beach. Another was fishing while waiting for the pub to open.
Looking around Brisbane’s bayside suburb of Wynnum on Friday, it was hard to imagine a tropical cyclone was looming.
Coffee shops were open, as well as the local movie theatre as people walked their dogs and children played along the foreshore.
Four million people in South East Queensland are sweating on Alfred’s arrival after the cyclone stalled overnight. Alfred is set make landfall just north of Brisbane’s CBD as a category 1 cyclone on Saturday morning, 24 hours later than initially predicted.
It will be the first cyclone to impact Queensland’s south-east since 1974 – when it finally arrives in Brisbane.
Millions of people have anxiously hunkered down at home as they brace for the cyclone. But many at Wynnum were sick of waiting.
Kylie Madge instead took a stroll along the foreshore on Friday morning with the wind likely whipping off her partner Ian Miller’s hat if it had not been tied around his chin.
The pair live a block away from the water’s edge and had prepared their home ahead of Alfred’s arrival by cleaning out loose items and buying food.
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“I have heaps of work I should be doing, but I don’t want to sit here and do it,” Madge said. “So we’re going to go to the movies which are still open and see Bridget Jones’ Diary to kill time.”
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Anita Russell and her partner Brad Woodbine were trying to tire out their two kids and two young pups, Marmaduke and Tilly, at a nearby park.
Neither were too concerned about Alfred, saying it felt like a long weekend.
They have strapped down their trampoline and taken any loose items inside, just in case.
“We’re over-prepared for what we think is going to fizzle out,” Anita said.
Alexandra Headland beach on the Sunshine Coast was abuzz with swimmers and surfers despite the warnings to stay out of the water.
Other locals walked dogs, played football and rode bikes along the beach, as kids with the day off school clustered around the skate park.
At coffee shop Milk and Beans, located just across the road from the Alex Heads surf club, customers sat at tables surrounded by sandbags.
“We thought we were going to close on Thursday – we changed our plans,” Vicktor, the cafe’s manager, said. “We’re going to see how the weather is … I think we’re going to do it day-by-day.”
But preparing for this cyclone has been stressful for Russell and Kaye Willis. Their home has been wiped out twice before by floods. They’re not sure they can rebuild again.
About three tonnes of sandbags guarded the perimeter of their property on Austral Avenue in Graceville on Friday. Everything on the ground floor had been put into boxes and carried upstairs.
“I said after 2022 ‘I can’t go through another one’ and now it looks like it’s going to happen again,” Kaye said, after her 82-year-old husband Russell teared up.
The long wait for Alfred has also added extra anxiety for Aaron Hawke.
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“We had a fair bit of prep time but the delay has added more anxiety because now there’s more time to sit around and wait for something you don’t know how bad it will be,” he said.
He is facing his third flood in as many years at Brighton, but Cyclone Alfred may pose a new challenge.
Alfred’s late slowdown will provide no respite, with the delay ensuring heavy rain and massive surf will hit South East Queensland and northern NSW for longer.
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William Davis is a reporter at Brisbane Times.Connect via email.
Catherine Strohfeldt is a reporter at Brisbane Times.Connect via Twitter or email.
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