Burdekin LDMG chair Mayor Lyn McLaughlin’s Tropical Cyclone Kirrily warning

The Burdekin LDMG is urging residents to “prepare for the unexpected” with forecasts of destructive cyclonic winds exceeding 150km/h on Thursday.

As Tropical Cyclone Kirrily continues to form in the Coral Sea, the Bureau of Meteorology says winds of up to 55 km/h could begin to buffet the Burdekin on Wednesday evening, followed by potentially destructive winds exceeding 130 km/h on Thursday. Picture: Windy.com

The Burdekin Local Disaster Management Group is urging residents to “prepare for the unexpected” with forecasts of destructive cyclonic winds exceeding 130km/h on Thursday.

As Tropical Cyclone Kirrily continues to form in the Coral Sea, the Bureau of Meteorology says winds of up to 55 km/h could begin to buffet the Burdekin on Wednesday evening, followed by potentially destructive winds exceeding 130 km/h on Thursday.

“The important thing is what are people going to do when the event comes should something unusual happen at their home?” Mayor Lyn McLaughlin, chair of the LDMG, said on Wednesday.

“Have we considered what we will do if a window breaks, or what do we do if the front door blows in and we’ve got no front door, what do we do if the roof blows off?” she said.

“This is not to frighten people, we are just trying to get people to think about scenarios that may occur.”

She said people may think that it’s “never think it’s going to happen to you”, but events in Far North Queensland during Tropical Cyclone Jasper and during the Townsville flood in 2019 showed otherwise.

“What are you going to do if you are in that situation because we can’t keep blaming people, we need to have a plan about what we would do if something like that happened to us,” she said.

“I just want to ask people to give some consideration to (the potential) of something extreme happening.”

The Mayor said emergency responses could not respond to calls other than 000 if the wind exceeded 80 km/h for their own safety.

Cr McLaughlin also urged residents to plan for a degree of self-resilience for an about 48-hour period after the cyclone passed, particularly if power was out.

“You need to be self-sufficient – have you got enough food, water, have you got enough capacity to start to clean up your yard?”

She urged residents to DOWNLOAD the council’s comprehensive Emergency Action Guide or grab a hard copy from the council.

Burdekin Shire Mayor Lyn McLaughlin. Picture: Evan Morgan

Cr McLaughlin said the community was taking the threat seriously.

“I’m happy to report that the community appear to be getting very organised; we’ve had hundreds of people taking sandbags from Home Hill, Ayr and Giru SES (State Emergency Service),” she said.

“The SES have responded to probably over 50 jobs, which is helping people who are infirm or unable to help themselves.”

A screen grab from the Burdekin Shire Council’s Disaster Dashboard.

Cr McLaughlin said the LDMG message remained “be resilient and be organised”.

“Everyone needs to take responsibility for themselves.”

She said it was important that members of the community continued to stay engaged with the latest developments as the potential cyclone approached.

“Sometimes the community gets complacent when they’ve been talking about it for a long time and nothing’s happened,” she said.

“One of our challenges is making sure everyone stays informed and up-to-date and the Burdekin Disaster Dashboard is the best for that.”

Cr McLaughlin said the council was ready.

“The water reservoirs have both been filled at Ayr and Home Hill, the drainage pathways have been checked, the generators (for bore water and sewage) have been checked, the fuel supply, shade sails have come down, the transfer stations are operating at full capacity at the moment,” she said.

“We’re very organised, we just need now to wait to see what the low forms and see where we go from there.”

The Burdekin LDMG is meeting again at 1pm.

The Burdekin Shire Council is also encouraging families to collect loose items from their loved ones’ graves as soon as possible.

“We are taking every precaution to protect our cemeteries from the weather event, but we cannot guarantee the safety of personal items as council staff are unable to collect and store them,” Cr McLaughlin said.

“We ask families to please remove any flowers, photos, ornaments or other items.”

Originally published as Burdekin LDMG chair Mayor Lyn McLaughlin’s Tropical Cyclone Kirrily warning