The Cathedral’s famous 200-year-old tree falls in torrential rain

Over a metre of water has flooded the Cathedral School’s parking lot, potentially writing off over $1m in buses and bringing the school’s famous 200-year-old raintree crashing to the ground.

The Cathedral’s lagoon overflows in the intense overnight rainfall event. March 19, 2025.

Over a metre of water has flooded the Cathedral School’s parking lot, potentially writing off over $1m in buses and bringing the school’s famous 200-year-old rain tree crashing to the ground.

The Cathedral School of St Anne and St James was caught completely off guard by Tuesday night’s torrential rainfall, which saw the school’s lagoon overflow and flood water spill across the main car park.

School principal Luke Baills said even in 2019, the flood levels in the car park were not as bad as they saw on Wednesday morning, March 19.

“2019 was the worst we’ve ever seen it, and that was still 1.5 metres below what we had this morning,” Mr Baills said.
“Five school buses were in the carpark and all five will have to be written off. The water went up to the windows. Some of those buses were just two years old so that’s a million dollars in buses gone.”

Some of the Cathedral School buses in the flooded carpark, March 19, 2025

The school closed its gates on Wednesday, allowing tree lopping crews to enter and start clearing the 200-year-old raintree that sits at the entrance of the school.
Mr Baills said when word got out that the iconic tree had fallen overnight, over 60 students turned up on their day off to see it for themselves.

(L-R) Boarding captains: Yanche-ka Neal, Jada Rankine, Shaquana Castors and Luke Bartolo.

The raintree was covered in lights by the school in 2017, and has become synonymous with the school, featuring as a backdrop to year 12 photos, school marketing material, and more.
Boarding captain Yanche-Ka Neal visited the tree on her day off.
“It is pretty sad because we’ve grown up with it,” Miss Neal said.
“Our school is known for this tree.”

The 200-year-old raintree was an icon of the school.

The tree had recently received a $60,000 facelift and was refitted with fairy lights in late 2024, but Mr Baills believes most of the lights have escaped damage and can be moved on another tree.
“Our plan is to save as much of the timber as we can,” Mr Baills said.
“We have two ideas. The first is to let the year 12s take a piece of tree’s timber with them at their graduation, and the second is to create a memory piece out of the timber.”

The last flowers of the Cathedral’s famous 200-year-old tree.

The rainfall on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning took nearly all of Townsville by surprise, dumping 301.4mm of rain in 24 hours and wind speeds maxing out at 50km/h at 11.30pm.

Originally published as The Cathedral’s famous 200-year-old tree falls in torrential rain