Waiting game leaves millions on tenterhooks

Alfred confounded forecasters and frustrated just about everyone else by backing off, then powering on. The calm before the storm is wearing thin.

The view from Q1 of the giant surf on Thursday as Cyclone Alfred approached, pounding the beachfront on the Gold Coast. Picture Glenn Hampson

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Talk about a tease. Cyclone Alfred confounded the forecasters and frustrated just about everyone else by backing off, then powering on with its erratic march on the south Queensland coast.

The moment of truth won’t arrive until well into Saturday, when the category 2 system is due to finally strike Brisbane.

While Premier David Crisafulli welcomed the extra time to prepare, the waiting is starting to fray nerves.

People have taped windows, cleared verandas, stocked the fridge – and now it was high time Alfred got a wriggle on. They’re not so calm that the lull before the storm is dragging on. And on.

“The wait is not good for your mindset,” said retiree Helen Peters, 74, who lives alone in a two-bedroom home at Sandstone Point, west of Bribie Island.

“The delay is prolonging it and it’s building up more. I went to the shops to get some bread and they were all saying ‘I want it over and done with’.”

At Lota on Brisbane’s southern bayside, 35-year-old office administrator Lara Keel was concerned the cyclone would intensify.

Ms Keel’s low-set home overlooking the mangroves was lapped by sea water at high tide and would be vulnerable to a storm surge.

“It’s definitely taking its … time, building up the anticipation,” she said of Alfred.

“I’m worried that it has stayed out there. I’m not a scientist but I’ve been told that it was going to create more rain.”

Residents of Burleigh run for cover as the outer edge of Cyclone Alfred drops a downpour on Queensland’s Gold Coast on Thursday. Picture: NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

The cyclone’s track continued to defy prediction, doubling back early on Thursday before resuming a leisurely advance westward at barely 10km/h. The estimated time of impact has been pushed out from Thursday to Friday and now the weekend.

“What we’ve seen overnight, in terms of the erratic movement of the system, reiterates the fact this is an evolving situation,” said Matthew Collopy, a senior forecaster from the Bureau of Meteorology.

But there was always a possibility the cyclone could slow further, delaying its landfall. Mr Crisafulli warned the 4.5 million people in the firing line against complacency. “It’s the little decisions and little actions that you take today that can make a world of difference,” he said.

In Lismore, NSW Premier Chris Minns said: “The window for destruction in our community – heavy rains, winds, powerful surf – is longer than we would have otherwise.”

Conditions in Brisbane remained eerily still on Thursday, with flags barely fluttering in the steamy conditions. Scattered showers heralded the impending deluge.

The CBD was a ghost town, with most offices and many shops closed. Supermarket shelves were picked clean of bread, milk and bottled water; chemists sold out of first-aid products.

Newsagent Ann Lau, of Manly Harbour News, said customer reactions to the cyclone ranged from complacent to panicked.

Ms Lau arrived in Queensland only a few months ago from Melbourne. Her shop is situated metres from the harbour and she opted to stay open on Thursday while local supermarkets and other retail outlets closed their doors.

“Everyone’s waiting. We want it to come earlier and get it over and done with,” she said.

“I’ve never experienced a ­cyclone and I really don’t know what to expect. It all depends on how big the storm is.”

Mermaid Beach looking towards Surfers Paradise on Thursday. Picture: Nigel Hallett

The message from Martin Jucker, of the University of NSW’s climate change research centre, was: don’t be fooled.

The cyclone was definitely coming.

“There’s no way Brisbane is going to get out of this, it’s going to be impacted. The forecasters are not getting it wrong,” said Dr Jucker, an expert in atmospheric dynamics.

“All the track predictions show it’s going to go over Brisbane, there’s going to be very strong winds, loads of rain, everything that’s been predicted.“

Dr Jucker explained that it was worth remembering that plots of the cyclone’s path simply showed where the centre was, and the ­effects would be felt much more widely, particularly south of the eye.

Atmospheric science expert Liz Ritchie-Tyo, of Monash University, agreed that “everyone just needs to hang tight”.

“Cyclones move about because of a few different factors but one of the biggest factors that pushes them in a particular direction is the large-scale steering flow from the atmosphere and for Alfred, it is being strongly steered by the winds from that very strong high pressure system that’s developed in the Tasman Sea,” Professor Ritchie-Tyo said.

“The winds to the north of that high are pushing it toward the west, which is why it’s moving towards the coast, and that’s not going to go away.”

A downpour at Burleigh Heads. Picture: Nigel Hallett

Mr Collopy said the cyclone was packing sustained winds of 95km/h near the eye, gusting to 150km/h.

It would dump up to 800mm of rain on coastal areas between the Sunshine Coast and northern NSW, inducing life-threatening flooding.

If it crossed the coast on a king tide, a “significant” storm surge could add 1.5m to the high water at Redland Bay, south of Brisbane, and on the Gold Coast.

On the waterfront at Lota, friends Kye Larson and Thomas Jackson, both 21, had done all they could to prepare at home and were heading out to set a line of crab pots.