David Crisafulli’s bid to replace Covid-era fear with facts in Cyclone Alfred response

When the Queensland Premier let rip in a phone hook-up with mayors and emergency service bosses, he was expressing the frustration gripping millions across the vast, thickly populated impact zone of ex-cyclone Alfred.

Premier David Crisafulli providing an emergency update, surrounded by southeast Queensland mayors at their local press conferences. Insert, clockwise: Sunshine Coast Council mayor Rosanna Natoli, City of Gold Coast Council deputy mayor Donna Gates and Brisbane City Council lord mayor Adrian Schrinner

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When David Crisafulli let rip in a phone hook-up with mayors and emergency service bosses on Sunday, he was expressing the frustration gripping millions across the vast, thickly populated impact zone of ex-cyclone Alfred.

The Queensland Premier took issue with an alert issued by a local council advising people to stay home when there was no need for such heavy-handed action. Mr Crisafulli thought it risked crying wolf, diminishing the warnings to those genuinely at risk, and could undercut the government’s efforts to prevail on essential personnel to report for work.

It was certainly a decisive break from the Covid era of messaging where no setback was too small to be milked for political advantage by an eager state leader.

Mr Crisafulli laid down the law as Alfred, downgraded to a tropical low-pressure system, continued to ­create havoc across southeast Queensland, unleashing life-endangering flash-floods in Hervey Bay, 280km north of Brisbane, and cutting power to more than 320,000 properties ­regionwide.

Amid chaotic scenes in Hervey Bay on Sunday, where 230mm of rain deluged the town in the three hours to 9am, 11 people were plucked from submerged cars and homes by swiftwater rescue teams. More heavy falls are possible in Brisbane on Monday, heightening the risk of flooding there. 

Deputy Commissioner Shane Chelepy and Premier of Queensland David Crisafulli at the Kedron emergency services complex on Sunday. Picture: John Gass

Mr Crisafulli insisted that households be given accurate, timely information and, wherever possible, be allowed to make their own decisions on what to do.

The messaging had to be precise and locally focused, reflecting Mr Crisafulli’s nuanced communications strategy during the cyclone emergency.

His crisp, businesslike manner was new to Queenslanders: less of the emotive language and hand-holding that past Labor premiers Anna Bligh and Annastacia Palaszczuk had deployed, more ­emphasis on imparting the nuts and bolts information people needed to know about the events unfolding around them.

On Sunday, the LNP man donned a suit and tie to deliver ­televised updates on the unfolding disaster.

“Instead of a top-down ­approach of ordering people what to do, this has been about providing information from the bottom up, addressing challenges with the agencies and councils, and providing clear and detailed local messaging,” one senior government source said.

Mr Crisafulli’s job was complicated by the number of players at the table: the mayors of 21 local councils in Brisbane and southeast Queensland, each with their own communications plan, plus representatives of federal and state government agencies, the Australian Defence Force, police, SES and dedicated disaster response ­organisations.

Accounts of the dressing down he delivered on Sunday at a phone hook-up of council leaders, agency heads and ministerial staff, preceding a full meeting of the Queensland Disaster Management Committee, vary. One of those aware of the exchange said Mr Crisafulli “blew up a bit” at a mayor, while another said his language had been “stern”.

But there was no mistaking the Premier’s intent.

A large tree blocks a main road in Teneriffe as a result of ex-cyclone Alfred, Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

He wanted to avoid platitudes and boilerplate statements in favour of tight, tailored messages focused on local conditions. This recognised that each council area potentially faced a different threat from the cyclone. He made the point that a blanket message to people to stay home could deter those who were needed at work, such as supermarket staff. In the case of schools, the government wanted inspectors from state agency QBuild on duty to certify that campuses could open.

In public, Mr Crisafulli showcased his case-by-case approach by citing the experience with two schools on the hard-hit Gold Coast hinterland. “I want to give an example of why … there isn’t a blanket (approach) across the region,” he said in a televised update.

“So, at Narangba Valley, the state school will be open tomorrow but the Narangba Valley State High School won’t, where there’s been significant trees that have fallen down and won’t give access.”

“Wherever possible, wherever it’s safe to do so, schools will be open,” he added.

Mr Crisafulli said parents and individual school communities were best placed to know whether children should be kept home. “We’re asking people to make sure that they stay safe and if getting to school from your particular property isn’t safe, well, of course, that’s a decision parents will make, and they’ll be supported in that, I assure you.

Locals play a game of rugby league on a flooded oval in Rosalie, Brisbane, following ex-cyclone Alfred. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

“But where it’s safe to do so, those schools will open and that will enable parents to plan.”

On Saturday, when the cyclone was downgraded before making a sluggish landfall north of the metropolitan area, Brisbane lord mayor Adrian Schrinner said the Queensland capital had “dodged a bullet”.

Then the rain started to fall in grey sheets, the wind rising to an angry howl, clocked at 104km/h at bayside Redcliffe. Trees and power lines went down, blacking out a ­record number of properties between Hervey Bay and the NSW border. More than 100 roads in Brisbane were blocked or cordoned off due to storm damage or inundation.

In riverside Teneriffe, where former factory buildings and wool stores have been converted into pricey apartments, a downed fig tree lay like a giant slug across Vernon Terrace, creating a 2m-high obstacle of splintered limbs and upended roots.

Kedron Brook, cutting through the inner-northside, was a raging torrent of coffee-coloured water threatening hundreds of properties. Norman Creek and Lota Creek in the eastern suburbs were exceeding moderate flood levels.

Offshore and Moreton Bay islands were badly struck. On Russell Island, retirees Jennifer and Neil Griffiths were still battened down in their waterfront home on Sunday, while the rain tumbled down. “We’ve had a pounding,” Ms Griffiths, 73, said.

“People were ringing us yesterday saying, ‘oh we’re so glad you got through it’ and I’d hold up the phone so they could hear the wind. It was still going, all through the night. We’re waiting for the power to come back on, and so is most of the island.”

She continued: “If this is dodging a bullet, I’d hate to think what it would have been like had it got us.”

Additional reporting: David Murray