Almost 300,000 without power across SEQ amid risk of life-threatening flash flooding

• Follow our live coverage for Cyclone Alfred here.

Cyclone Alfred has broken an unwelcome record, as its remnants continued to sit off the south-east Queensland coast.

In his afternoon update, Premier David Crisafulli said 330,000 homes and businesses had been without power for at least some of Saturday, with Energex and Ergon crews working hard to restore service.

Wild seas on the Gold Coast on Sunday.Credit: Dan Peled

“If you think about that, that’s somewhere in the order of about three-quarters of a million Queenslanders who’ve been impacted,” he said.

“To put that into perspective, at 330,000 that’s the largest ever loss of power from a natural disaster in Queensland’s history – it’s bigger than Yasi, bigger than Debbie, bigger than Oswald.

“It shows you the scale of the destruction”.

Supermarkets would reopen on a case-by-case basis from Sunday, Crisafulli said, and it was up to small businesses whether they would open.

“Should a small business open tomorrow? Well, the answer is that small business knows,” he said.

“They know if they’re in a flood area, they know their clientele, they know their own capacity, and we have faith in them making the right decision.

“We’ll give them the tools and the information and they’ll make the right decision.”

Advice about what schools could reopen Monday would be issued on Sunday as, depending on the mode, public transport would begin to come back online.

Brisbane City Council buses will be back on the road on Sunday, on a normal weekend timetable, with CityCat and KittyCat services resuming from Monday. Crisafulli said Queensland Rail was a more complicated matter.

“There’s a lot of assessment work to be done,” he said.

“There’s debris that needs to be cleared from the track. So that’s a number of things. The Gold Coast line, Cleveland line, Sunny Coast line – those assessments will continue and we’ll update Queenslanders tomorrow.”

Alfred was downgraded from a category 1 cyclone on Saturday morning after it crossed over Moreton Island.

By Saturday afternoon, the ex-tropical cyclone was north-east of Brisbane, near Bribie Island, and authorities said millions of people were still at significant risk of flash flooding as the system moved west over land.

Power was restored to Gold Coast University Hospital shortly before 4.30pm, Crisafulli said. Emergency generators were also able to restart water treatment centres “minutes before” they ran out of water.

Crisafulli said the challenge remained flash flooding.

Russell Willis and wife Kaye have sandbagged her Graceville home after experiencing floods before.Credit: Dan Peled

In an update about noon Queensland time, Seqwater said an earlier notice to conserve water in the Redlands area had now been lifted.

“The pumping station was returned to service this morning with a large generator operating to help refill the reservoir again ... Seqwater would like to thank the Redlands community for their support while we returned the asset to service.”

In recent days, there had been concern about dam releases, but Seqwater said no gated dam releases were occurring, with minimal rainfall in the Wivenhoe, Somerset and North Pine catchments overnight.

“While there are no gated releases currently occurring, this may change in the coming days, pending rainfall,” Seqwater said.

Seqwater said as of noon, eight of the 23 ungated dams were spilling excess water. These included Cedar Pocket Dam, Enoggera Dam, Gold Creek Dam, Wappa Dam, Hinze Dam, Leslie Harrison Dam, Little Nerang Dam and Maroon Dam.

Energex said the majority of the power outages were on the Gold Coast, with 130,000 properties out, followed by 48,000 in Brisbane, and 48,000 in the Redland Bay area.

Wild seas and beach erosion at Miami Beach on the Gold Coast.Credit: Dan Peled

Dozens of people needed help on the Gold Coast overnight, including residents of a Labrador apartment block whose roof was blown off. About 15 people from the unit block had to be evacuated after the Frank Street building’s roof was damaged about 10.30pm.

Police said one woman was taken to hospital with minor injuries, with the others taken to the Burleigh Heads Evacuation Centre.

Four patients were taken to that hospital about 2.30am after breathing in fumes from a generator inside their Mudgeeraba home.

At the Gold Coast Seaway, 107km/h winds had been reported, and significant coastal erosion.

Bureau of Meteorology Brisbane manager Matthew Collopy said as the system moved inland, tropical moisture would stream across south-east Queensland.

“We are expecting widespread totals of 300 to 500 millimetres, with localised amounts of 800 millimetres-plus possible in some areas of south-east Queensland, particularly again around the southern part of where ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred tracks,” he said.

Rosalie shopkeepers have prepared for the 250 millimetres of rain predicted to hit Brisbane on Saturday, and up to 150 millimetres forecast for Sunday.Credit: Dan Peled

Meteorologist Miriam Bradbury said there was already a lot of flash flooding across parts of the Gold Coast overnight, which was likely to continue through to Sunday.

She said there had already been significant river rises in parts of the region.

“We’ve got a number of major flood warnings current through south-east Queensland and much of north-east NSW as those rivers are pushing up in their levels,” she said.

“Our flood watches are even more extensive and cover much broader parts of south-east Queensland, starting to push inland through northern inland NSW as well.

“That’s really flagging the risk that as this system moves westwards and inland, taking that rainfall with it, we’re going to see those totals pushing west as well, filling out those catchments away from the coast.”

When asked whether the bureau would still categorise the system that crossed into south-east Queensland as a cyclone, given that it had been downgraded, Collopy said it was better to focus on the effects of the weather system.

“It certainly crossed the bay islands as a category 1 system,” he said. “The exact coastal crossing times and those features will be analysed in good time, and I would again focus on the impacts, and also focus on the rainfall and flooding we’re still expecting.”

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