Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred hammers Toowoomba with 100km gusts, tens of thousands without power
With 200mm of rain set to fall overnight, the Premier has announced school will open Monday if it is safe to do so. LATEST UPDATES
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Major supermarkets have advised customers they will remain open where it is safe to do so as heavy rain and thunderstorms reach inland Queensland.
A Woolworths spokesperson said teams were working hard to restock shelves after ex-TC Alfred temporarily limited supply to the region.
“All our Toowoomba stores opened this morning, however due to local power outages, our Range, Kearneys Spring and Highfields stores temporarily closed for a short period before midday,” the spokesperson said.
“Power has now been restored to all three stores, and they’re back open to serve our local customers.
“With key supplier and distribution facilities in the South East closing ahead of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred, supply to our Toowoomba stores has been impacted in recent days, and we understand our Toowoomba customers haven’t been able to find some of their regular products.
“Overnight our Brisbane distribution centre reopened, and we have stock on its way to our Toowoomba stores, however, restocking and getting back to normal will understandably take some time.
“We apologise for the disruption, and we thank our customers for their patience and understanding during this exceptional weather event.”
A Coles spokesperson advised stock would return to normal levels as soon as possible, with teams working tirelessly to put essential goods back on the shelves.
“Our distribution centres are back up and running, and our priority is getting essential goods into our stores,” the spokesperson said.
“We have extra deliveries on their way to our stores, however, it will take some time to restock our shelves so just ask that our customers only take what they need to ensure there is enough for everyone in the community.”
SUNDAY, 2PM: Schools across the Darling Downs and Lockyer Valley will reopen on Monday if it is safe to do so.
Premier David Crisafulli advised schools not damaged by ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred will resume on Monday, weather permitting.
Mr Crisafulli said each school’s opening status would be updated by 5pm today and a full list of closures will be available on closures.qld.edu.au.
Kerbside bin collection will resume in the Toowoomba region from Monday, March 10.
Residents are advised to avoid disposing of sandbags in their kerbside bin, opting rather to spread the sand over their yard or store for future use.
Staff at Toowoomba’s Gip’s Restaurant woke to find a large tree near the popular restaurant had fallen overnight.
“It must have come down during the night because it didn’t come down (during business hours),” Gip’s general manager Danielle Brown said.
“We’re pretty lucky that the tree fell away from the building so there’s no damage to the structure.
“We were just grateful no one was there and none of our patrons were dining in the restaurant when it fell.
Ms Brown said the fallen tree provided a silver lining, with the venue now able to host larger parties in the marquee area.
“It will give us the opportunity to appeal to potential clients to host larger events,” she said.
She added clean up efforts would start as soon as possible, weather permitting, with plans to reopen on Tuesday.
“It will be business as usual from Tuesday,” she said.
“It’s been a pretty quiet week in the restaurant … they’ve all rescheduled into other time slots so I think we’ll just be extra busy the next few weeks.
SUNDAY, 12PM: Toowoomba mayor Geoff McDonald has assured residents the city is well prepared for ex-TC Alfred’s incoming deluge.
“At this stage the preparation of our community, our council and agencies puts us in a very good place,” he said.
“We are monitoring the situation … there will be outages, almost a third of our region is being affected by that.
“(However) we are not strangers to natural disaster, we’ve done it before and our preparedness has given our agencies and ourselves a lot of comfort.
More than 30 traffic signals, both council and state-owned, across Toowoomba were inoperational this morning as the city battled widespread power outages.
Mr McDonald said the council and partnering agencies were “cautiously optimistic” the community’s water supply would not be severely impacted by the oncoming storms.
“It will all be dependent on particularly our power,” he said.
“We have filled our reserves, we have made sure to have about 30 to 36 hours of water supply if we do experience (power outage)
“That said things can change quickly with these events as we’ve seen.”
He further advised several residents in low lying areas of Oakey, Toowoomba and Jondaryan could be affected by severe flooding if rainfall predictions ring true.
“There is around about 70 properties, that includes some commercial properties, that could receive inundations if the predictions do come true,” he said.
“The police door knocked those 70 places and have done an addition 30 properties today just out of preparedness.”
Those near Gowrie Creek, Oakey creek and Lagoon Creek are advised to monitor flood conditions has rainfall increases.
Mr McDonald advised an update on school closures and public transport operations would be issued later this afternoon.
“We’re anticipating a decision on the schools later today and that will then trigger the likes of public transport and our (community) facilities as far as whether they will open.
“We are hopeful schools will open but because of the delay in timing, particularly on the coast … that might mean we have this same sort of weather if not a little bit more tomorrow.
“That is why today we are really monitoring the situation.”
SUNDAY, 11AM: Latest forecasts from the Bureau of Meteorology predict up to 200mm of rain over a 24-hour period across the Toowoomba region.
Senior Meteorologist Jonathan How said rainfall would likely increase in the late afternoon and continue into Monday morning and early afternoon.
“We are expecting to see the potential for heavy rainfall continuing today,” Mr How said.
“We are expecting that to really build up this afternoon, we’ll start to see those heavier showers heading down from the northern areas and extending down towards the Darling Downs.
“It will be quite unsettled, quite stormy but really the focus will be across Toowoomba and down towards Texas and east of there.”
Mr How said winds would likely reduce in the coming hours after overnight winds reached 98km/h at Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport with sustained speeds of 60km/h to 75km/h.
“Winds are easing off through the morning, there is a possibility of some pretty gusty bursts with showers and thunderstorms but by and large the risk of damaging winds is not too great,” he said.
From late Monday, showers are predicted to ease across the Darling Downs as the system moves west past Dalby and into the Western Downs.
“Tuesday the main showers and thunderstorms seem to be west of Dalby; Toowoomba might get a light shower or two and there is a risk of severe thunderstorms which could produce localised damaging winds in the area.
A flood watch for the Condamine and Border Rivers areas remains current with moderate flooding warning issued for Lockyer and Laidley Creek.
“Once we start to see the rainfall this afternoon, we’ll get a better idea of whether or not that (Lockyer Valley flood warning) needs to be upgraded to a major warning,” Mr How cautioned.
“Over the next two or three days, depending on what we see, some of those flood watch areas may also need to become warning areas.
“We are waiting to see what will happen with this rain coming through today and tomorrow.”
SUNDAY, 9AM: Thousands of Toowoomba residents are still without power as Ergon Energy crews respond to calls of fallen wires across town.
An Ergon Energy spokesman said it was unknown when power would return for Toowoomba residents.
“Where it is safe our crews will be out there,” he said.
“(Time frames) will depend on what they find and what sort of access issues they’ve got.
“We don’t know what damage there is … people should be prepared for prolonged outages.
“This is the back-end of a tropical cyclone and that’s going to have some consequences with heavy rain.”
The spokesman warned those without power using generators, to follow safety advice inside the home.
“People should be using them in a well-ventilated area, we’ve had an incident in southeast Queensland where a household was running a generator in their house and four people were taken to hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning.”
Residents can report fallen powerlines and entanglements on 13 16 70.
SES Southwest incident controller David Bennett said SES volunteers were out in Toowoomba assessing harm, with wet and windy weather likely to bring more debris and possibly damage.
“We are just managing a few local jobs around Toowoomba here … there are multiple jobs we are looking at,” Mr Bennett said.
“If this wind keeps up and the moisture gets wetter the trees can dislodge easier.
“Residents need to be very careful where they are parking their cars and where their kids are playing.”
In the Southern Downs, a conserve water alert remains current for residents of Killarney on the New South Wales-Queensland border.
Residents were advised on Saturday afternoon local water supply had been impacted by the fallout of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.
Council advised those affected to conserve water and cease all non-essential use until further notice.
SUNDAY, 6AM: Tens of thousands of homes across the Toowoomba region are without power, as the region deals with the impacts of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.
Power outages are scattered across the Toowoomba region, reaching all the way up through to Highfields and Crows Nest.
A severe weather warning remains in place for Toowoomba and the wider Darling Downs, with further high winds and big rainfall totals expected.
A tree fell on a home in Highfields, but it is understood no one was inside at the time.
Highfields resident Amanda Glass described the high winds across Saturday night and into Sunday morning as “extremely frightening”.
SATURDAY, 9PM: Toowoomba is reportedly experiencing wind gusts of up to 90km/hr, as the city and the wider Darling Downs braces for a deluge.
Rain is forecast to strike as ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred slowly makes its way west as a tropical low.
Ergon Energy is reporting more than 3000 homes across the city are currently without power.
Some of the areas affected include parts of Newtown and Darling Heights.
Flood warnings remain in place across the region.
EARLIER: While ex-cyclone Alfred has downgraded to a tropical low storm system, meteorologists are warning of widespread dangerous weather across the Darling Downs, Western Downs and Lockyer Valley regions.
The Bureau of Meteorology have asked Queensland’s inland residents to remain vigilant as heavy protracted rainfall and potentially damaging winds move westward as ex-cyclone Alfred passes through the mainland.
“It’s all combining to lead to some rather dangerous weather conditions even though it has been downgraded to a tropical low,” the Bureau’s Morgan Pumpa said.
“I just want people to think of the fact that all the weather from pretty much the east coast, and especially Queensland, has been drawn into ex-tropical cyclone Alfred over the past more than a week.”
Coles and Woolworths supermarkets across the region continued to operate on Saturday and are set to remain open over the weekend.
Multiple stores, including Woolworths Grand Central, held limited stock of food items such as dairy, bread, seafood and deli meats as supplies ran short in the wake of ex-cyclone Alfred.
A Woolworths spokesperson said deliveries would resume across the state’s affected areas as soon as it was safe to do so.
“Once stores reopen, resuming deliveries, restocking stores and getting back to normal will understandably take some time,” the spokesperson said.
“We are now completing safety checks at our Brisbane Distribution Centre in readiness for the team to return overnight so we can resume deliveries to stores. Our transport partners are also carefully considering road access and safety for their drivers.
“We thank customers in advance for their patience and understanding as stock availability per store will be variable and not all their favourite products will be available when we reopen.”
Toowoomba and Lockyer Valley will likely receive heavy rainfall from Saturday afternoon and into next week, with expected totals potentially reaching into triple digits.
“It really depends on the positioning of ex-cyclone Alfred,” Ms Pumpa said.
“Heavy rainfalls are possible for today around Toowoomba, Gatton and also for Dalby.
“As we get into tomorrow morning there still remains a chance for heavy rainfall even into Monday, where we might still get some double digits instead of triple digits.
“Even through today triple digits are possible, triple digits are still possible tomorrow, we’re predicting 35-130mm for Toowoomba.
“That could change overnight and into tomorrow depending on where this system goes.”
While cyclonic winds are no longer expected in the coming days, damaging winds and potential pockets of destructive winds are still likely across the coast and inland.
“First concern is the rain, the second concern would be the winds
“It doesn’t seem like it’s lingering too long, it is still bringing that chance of heavy rainfall and damaging winds and whether or not we might even see (very isolated) areas of destructive winds is something for people to look out for,” Ms Pumpa remarked.
“Flash flooding is a concern, we do have the chance of some locally intense rainfall, it’s looking more likely along the coast but I still want to flag that for inland as this system continues to evolve.
“It’s still quite dynamic but still quite widespread, there’s not many spots for the rain to go even as it moves inland and stretches into NSW.”
Moderate flood warnings have been issued for Lockyer and Laidley Creeks area as rapid river rises are expected to reach inland by Saturday afternoon and into Sunday.
A flood watch remains for areas surrounding the Condamine river and Borders river as ex-cyclone Alfred tracks forward.
Ms Pumpa cautioned the potential impacts of the tropical low could linger for days following its arrival in the south west.
“It might be into next week that we are seeing impacts from flooding,” she said.
“Puddling is very much possible impacting roads; please don’t drive through flood waters or enter them.
“Even some blue sky flooding into next week can’t be ruled out in some areas so we really just want people to take care not only today and tomorrow but into next week as well.
“Just because of how widespread this event is, but also because of there being the impact of winds and rain and river flooding, it can take a while for those impacts to reduce.”
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Originally published as Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred hammers Toowoomba with 100km gusts, tens of thousands without power
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