At home and powerless in every way as unwelcome visitor looms

Visibility just a few metres. Still keeping an eye on the gigantic hoop pine in front of the house and garage. I lock the front door for no reason and we huddle together and wait for Alfred’s eye.

A road closure at the Byron Bay turn-off in far northern NSW on Friday as a result of heavy rain brought by Cyclone Alfred. Picture: NewsWire / Glenn Campbell

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Limping home on the outskirts of our battered riverine town of Mullumbimby (the Biggest Little Town in Australia) in the low hills behind Byron Bay, through ­Alfred’s deluge.

Visibility just a few metres. Thankful the power is still on. Still keeping an eye on the gigantic hoop pine in front of the house and garage. It’s the sort of hoop pine that would have caught the eye of seafarers and shipbuilders in the 18th century, its spar-like branches so majestic, its cones the size of your head.

Settle down to watch the first-round NRL match between the Brisbane Broncos and the Roosters, being played in Sydney. Have only waited six months for this moment. High excitement in the house and a relief to temporarily escape the looming cataclysm.

Twenty minutes before kick-off the power goes out. No internet. Not enough data coverage to watch the match on an iPad or even a phone.

Sit and sulk, knowing that down in Sydney fans are enjoying a hot dog and the unfurling of the 2025 season, witnessing the rebirth of my beloved Broncos under Coach Madge.

Go to bed. Twenty minutes after the match concludes the power and internet explode to life. Decide TC Alfred must be a Roosters fan. (Good luck with that.)

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Broken sleep. The wind is so fierce it sounds like the house has magically been relocated to the end of the runway of an inter­national airport. On its busiest night of the week. The jet-engine-style roar of the wind is relentless.

Our old Queenslander creaks and thuds and protests. No power again. Around 4am I check the hoop pine out the bathroom window and in the gloom it appears to be looming over the house, all 20, 30m of it, the spars outstretched and ghostly like they’re pulling us all in for a final hug. Need an urgent glass of water, but the taps are out. No power, no pump from the water tanks. No sleep.

Trees threatening powerlines in the Byron Bay Hinterland on Friday. Picture: NewsWire / Glenn Campbell

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At dawn head down to check on our rescue horses – Jessie and Tazzie – tenants of our kindly neighbour’s back paddock. The side of a giant camphor laurel nearby has sheared off not far from the horses’ little portable three-sided barn.

Jess, in his early 30s and with few teeth, is composed. Tazzie, in his early 30s with fewer teeth, is shivering, agitated and wild-eyed.

They are the Odd Couple of ageing equines.

We’re keeping an eye on a nearby creek that is slowly but steadily filling and creeping up towards the horses’ shelter. Life now is keeping an eye on everything. Water. Branches. Debris. Creeks. Hoop pines.

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The disorder of the moment, the weird light, the relentless sheeting rain takes me back to Brisbane in 1974, my only previous cyclone experience.

That howling high-decibel wind has drawn out the memories. The same jet engines and mad rain. The same music of corrugated iron trying to pull away from its nails.

An image of my dear departed grandmother in her little worker’s cottage in the old suburb of Rosa­lie in the city’s inner west, defiant, telling rescuers she will not leave her home under any circumstances, that she’s willing to go down with the ship.

Then, a few hours later, with the rising floodwaters lapping at her bottom step, she is the first into the rescue dinghy, clutching her caged blue budgerigar,

Bluey. Every memory of 1974 has a backdrop of soupy, foul-smelling water flecked with splintered timber and leaves and garbage.

Realise you’re getting old if you have memories of Brisbane’s 1974 floods. Realise the kids ­experiencing Alfred will remember it half a century from now, when me and Jessie and Tassie are long gone.

Members of the Mullumbimby SES preparing for Cyclone Alfred. Picture: Northern Rivers SES🚨

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Thought our cyclone preparations were of military-grade and unbreachable.

The second the power goes out there is chaos. The kids, particularly our 12-year-old, has been playing with the torches and ­rechargeable camping lamps, all previously corralled together on the dining room table in the event of a blackout. Now they’re scattered asunder.

Have forgotten to attach the tap to the 22-litre plastic jerry can of fresh water. It slurps and slops all over the floor.

What looked like a lot of emergency food stocked in the pantry has already been grazed down to bare earth.

With the power on and off we’re not sure what frozen food or quasi-thawed food in the fridge might be edible.

The dogs, clinging to the ceiling and too frightened to go outside, have repurposed the back deck as their private lavatory.

Water is coming down the ­ancient flue of our ancient potbelly fireplace.

Years ago my wife and kids lampooned my passion for analogue portable radios as fuddy-duddy, old-fashioned and, frankly, downright embarrassing, and tossed out all my sets.

An hour ago, with no power and no Wi-Fi, my wife asks – why don’t you turn on one of those silly radios of yours so we can hear what’s happening out there?

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Hop into the car, into the squall, for a quick trip down to the Biggest Little Town in Australia for some more supplies. Will anything be open?

(A couple of days ago a local is eviscerated on social media for complaining with venom that her favourite niche cafe in downtown Byron Bay is closed because of bloody Alfred. No not-too-cold and not-too-hot latte with oat milk for you.)

We know others will be doing it a lot tougher. We know that ­special people are out there helping and showing great empathy and valour under dangerous ­conditions.

People who rise up in ­moments of catastrophe. I turn right out the driveway and down the street, fiddling with the radio and trying to find the news.

A giant tree has come down and totally blocked the thoroughfare. No way in and no way out of this dead end. I turn around and head home.

And even from this distance, beyond the neighbour’s veggie patch, and the other neighbour’s native trees, I can see the swaying top of my nemesis, our hoop pine. It’s there like the feathered end of a giant arrow fired to earth by some angry god.

Back home I lock the front door for no reason and we huddle together and wait for Alfred’s eye.