‘Sick of waiting’: Some are relaxed, but Alfred’s delay adds anxiety for others

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 difficult to picture that a tropical cyclone loomed.

Coffee shops were open, as well as the local movie theatre, as people walked their dogs, and children played along the foreshore.

Surfers and locals at Alexandra Headland Beach on the Sunshine Coast on Friday. Credit: Catherine Strohfeldt

Four million people in South East Queensland were sweating on Alfred’s arrival after the cyclone stalled overnight. Alfred was set make landfall just north of Brisbane’s CBD as a category 1 cyclone on Saturday morning, 24 hours later than initially predicted. It was downgraded on Saturday morning to a tropical low.

It would have been the first cyclone to impact Queensland’s south-east since 1974 – when it finally arrived in Brisbane.

Millions of people were anxiously hunkered down at home as they braced for the weather system. But many at Wynnum were sick of waiting.

Kylie Madge instead took a stroll along the foreshore on Friday morning, the wind whipping off her partner Ian Miller’s hat had it not been tied around his chin.

The two 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.

“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, to see Bridget Jones’ Diary to kill time.”

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 strapped down their trampoline and took 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 warnings to stay out of the water.

At coffee shop Milk and Beans, located just across the road from the Alexandra Headland surf club, customers sat at tables surrounded by sandbags on Friday.Credit: Catherine Strohfeldt

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,” said Vicktor, the cafe’s manager. “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 was stressful for Russell and Kaye Willis. Their home had been wiped out twice before by floods. They weren’t sure they could rebuild again.

Russell Willis and his wife Kaye sandbagged her Graceville home, having experienced floods before.Credit: Dan Peled

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.

“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 ex-Tropical 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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