Round my way on the south side of Brisbane we awoke to relative calm. It was windy and rainy, but nothing would indicate we’d just come through a Cat 2 cyclone.
We got our shelter in place warning around 11pm last night, and that seemed to put minds at rest.
Shelter in place means go to the strongest part of the house. Ideally a room without windows – a pantry or walk-in wardrobe, if need be.
We opted to stay in our beds and sleep through it.
If I’m honest, it just felt a lot like a November gale in the UK, where I grew up. But without the harsh wind-chill.
The worst thing that happened was some cat peed in my laundry basket. But there wasn’t any laundry in it anyway.
I find storms oddly comforting when I’m indoors and can watch from the safety of a sturdy building. I have the immense privilege of living in a developed part of the world where buildings are relatively robust.
Alf was downgraded to a Cat 1 around 1am last night as he crossed the islands just off the coast of Brisbane.
That means we were just clipped by the outer arms of a flailing cyclone that was rapidly losing steam.
Alf, whose mainland landfall is now imminent (but in typical Alfred style, tbd), was downgraded to a tropical low at 6am.
I took that as my cue to go outside and see for myself what he’d brought us. Also, I was keen to get out before the hard rain sets in and makes a lap of the neighbourhood impossible sans kayak.
In all honesty, it just looked like the aftermath of a regular summer storm. Pretty much the same as it’s looked for the last three days: evidence of wind in the form of downed branches. A few more now, but no biggies. And no trees or power lines down round my way.
Hyde Road park is flooded. The drainage creek has merged with the path, so what was a sloshy walk elsewhere was an ankle-deep trudge through what’s usually the most pleasant part of my daily walk.
The tent in the park is still standing, a medium-sized branch lying right next to it. The tent’s inhabitant got off lucky there, though the flooding to come might convince him to accept the shelter he’s been repeatedly offered.
In The Aftermath of Alf
A lot of folks around here, and in other parts of the country, have been dismissing Alf as a fizzer.
He rocked up late, and didn’t bring much life or soul to the party.
And then he flipped us an Irish goodbye.
But folks writing Alf off as a non-event are being callously myopic.
If you didn’t cop a battering, great. Other people did.
Where I live, we came off unscathed. We’re in the city where it’s pretty built up, back a ways from the ocean where folks are exposed to the elements. While our part of town stands on a floodplain, my place is up a pretty steep hill. We might just be in one of the more sheltered spots.
Just a little ways south of us, and closer to the coast, some areas have copped it much worse.
And we only got clipped last night. Alf, as mentioned, has yet to make landfall. Yet he still did a fuckload of damage further south of here on his way.
The Gold Coast and Northern New South Wales got smashed. Some homes destroyed by falling trees. Some by flooding. And the worst is yet to come. Folks are scrambling to save their possessions and livelihoods from rising floodwaters. Those who were ordered to evacuate have already lost everything. And for many of them, this will be their second or third time in the last three years.
And across the region, trees have downed power lines, leaving more than 300,000 households and businesses without power. That’s over 10% of the region’s population. So far. Some water pumping stations have lost power, meaning the areas they service will also be without water.
Once Alf makes landfall just north of Brisbane, we’re expecting to see the rainfall ramp up. The southern regions might be spared the worst of it. According to forecasts, that’s saved up for us here in the city.
What we didn’t get in wind damage, we’ll get in flood damage instead.
We don’t yet know how bad it’s going to be, but it’s expected to have a broader impact than the epic flooding of 2022. Estimates are 500mm at the lower end, 800mm at the upper end.
For context, 1m of rain in February 2022 led to 3.85m of flooding in the lowest-lying parts of the city. It was about the 3.5m mark at my place, swallowing up my home on its 2.5m stilts. Water flowed through up to the windowsills, shunting the furniture about and knocking over the fridge.
Needless to say, we were not able to continue living there. And our flood-destroyed possessions did not move onto our current place with us.
If Alf’s aftermath is half as bad as 2022, a fair few people are going to be out of their homes and businesses in the next couple of days, even in my neighbourhood that barely got tickled by the wind.
I can only hope for the best for them. But Mother Nature don’t negotiate.
Prepping for Worse to Come
It doesn’t feel like it’s going to be apocalyptic right now. The rain is on and off. Nothing like in 2022, when you had to be in it to imagine it. The force with which it hit us was unfathomable to me before. But now I know nature can do that, I am forewarned and forearmed.
Some of yesterday’s tips and tricks to surf the cyclone stress are no longer needed. We’re facing a different scenario now. But the principles remain the same.
For those of us who are out of harm’s way, we’ll witness hard rain and bad news affecting others. We might still lose power. And maybe water. Our cyclone prep was not wasted. The non-perishable foods, camping stove, candles, and stored water were for what’s yet to come.
For those already evacuated, I’m so sorry. The extent of the damage won’t be knowable for a couple of days. The waiting game on that is hard. I’ll talk us through it later.
For those in the uncertainty zone, facing possible flooding, we’re back to a similar waiting game to the one we were sitting through this time yesterday
And, as with pre-Alf prepping, post-Alf prepping can help us seize control and certainty where it’s otherwise lacking. And that should mitigate some of the angst.
In this case, I strongly recommend a decision tree.
What will you do if/when the power goes out? I recommend this is the point at which you leave for a safer haven. If you’re unable to charge your devices, you’re not well positioned to monitor the news or call for support. A generator is useless to you if it goes under water.
At what point will you make the call to elevate your belongings? How high does the water need to go before you choose to move stuff? If you have another storey to move stuff to, that’s a hard job, but worth doing. If you don’t, then you’re hoping for the best in lifting stuff that can be lifted onto kitchen counters and dining tables. In 2022, that’s all we had available to us. And we still lost nearly all our stuff.
Some of our neighbours had the foresight and wherewithal to literally move all their stuff out of their house a couple of days beforehand. That meant they saved precious belongings. But they still lost their house. It was knocked down a year and a half later.
At what point will you seek refuge elsewhere? When the power goes out? When the water reaches a certain level? When it starts getting dark? When you get an evac order?
My own experience on 27 February 2022 taught me a thing or few. And sharing is caring.
It would’ve been about 5am when I got up to survey the water level. I hadn’t been able to sleep much, thanks to the racket of the rain pounding on the roof. The water was more than half-way up the two-metre fence in the backyard. You could’ve swum in it. You wouldn’t have wanted to.
I went down to rescue a few bits and pieces from under the house, wading through waist-deep shitwater. I gave a nod of resignation to my submerged washing machine, and went back into the house to shower, and then woke up my housemate (the marvel could sleep through anything!) to talk her through the plan I’d formulated in my head: she should also shower, as if we had to evacuate it might be a while til she got another chance. We should eat, cos it might be a while til we got another chance. Then we should pack bug-out bags (mine consisted of my phone, laptop, chargers, a change of clothes, PJs, toothbrush, sleeping bag, cat food, cat litter, litter trays, and three anxious kitties in their respective crates).
Then we should wait for the power to go out, presuming that would happen before the floodwater reached the floorboards. That would be our cue to leave.
In the meantime, we’d raise everything in the house up as high as we could get it, and hope for the best. She would move her car to higher ground. And then we’d ring around friends to check who and where might be able to take us.
I was reluctant to move any earlier than absolutely necessary, as having three cats with me meant it would be hard to find someone willing or able to take us all.
The power went out around 10am, and we got busy getting busy. My housemate was able to get to a friend nearby who could take only her. I got three names down my list before I got lucky. My first was a yes, but the roads were cut off, not even passable by 4wd. My second was a no, as they were already full, and not cat-friendly. My third was a yes, and involved me and three cats camping out on a two-seater couch. Not fancy, but hella appreciated.
We got the evac order after 4pm. Six hours after we’d evacuated. I couldn’t tell you how high the water was at that point. But I heard my neighbours were rescued around 7pm on surfboards.
My point here is you need to know your trigger points for necessary actions. And you need to know that you’re potentially trading a bit of a shit situation for ultimate safety – i.e., you’ll be a beggar, not a chooser; but you’ll be safe. Draw a line in the sand and stick to it. This will save you angst and buy you a sense of control that’s required to stay sane as you surf the uncertainty.
Whether you can save your home or any stuff you can’t take with you if you have to leave is not in your hands. Only decisions are in your hands. So, get clear on those – the whats, the wheres, the whos, the whens, and the hows.
In my next post, I’ll talk about surfing the waves of uncertainty post-evacuation.
Good luck out there today and tomorrow!
