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A flood-ravaged town is expected to be inundated for its second major natural disaster in three years as local rivers swell beyond their banks before the arrival of Cyclone Alfred.
Thousands of people have already been forced to evacuate in northern NSW ahead of the cyclone’s predicted arrival on Saturday, when it is expected to make landfall in south-east Queensland.
Many residents across a stretch of coastline and hinterland spanning more than 100km from Evans Head to the Queensland border were without power and facing the prospect of days-long outages on Friday morning.
In Lismore, where several people died and more than 1000 homes were badly damaged during the 2022 floods, locals were told to evacuate by Thursday night from low-lying areas.
The local river reached minor flood level and could be hit by major flooding within a day after 300mm of rain fell in some areas in a 24-hour period.
Several other rivers across northern NSW were at minor or moderate flood levels as the region readied for the state’s first cyclone in 35 years.
Chair of Bundjulung Tribal Society (BTS) Tracey King said the trauma of the previous deluge is still raw for people in the area.
“I started having flashbacks when they started talking about the flooding,” she told NITV.
“I don’t know if I can go through this again. I just started getting my life back on track.”
BTS owns 18 properties, and manages a further 10, that are all inhabited by Aboriginal families in the area.
Ms King has concerns for the tenants.
“We just renovated the properties, and the tenants are back into them,” she said.
“We’ve got nowhere to put them.”
Another local community feeling the strain is Cabbage Tree Island.
Hit hard by the 2022 floods, some residents are still living in the ‘temporary’ accommodation of so-called pod villages, made up of shipping-container sized dwellings, similar to dongas used in remote communities and fly-in-fly-out accomodation.
As a tropical cyclone makes its first appearance in the region in decades, there are additional concerns to those of the flood.
“Unfortunately, residents in the pods have been asked to evacuate, and not because of flood issues, but wind issues, really,” Troy Anderson, CEO of Jali Local Aboriginal Land Council, said.
“So they’re not sure whether the the actual pods will hold up to the the type of winds that they’ve predicted that will come through.”
Alfred is expected to cross the coast north of Brisbane, however a cyclone warning is in place for an area from north of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast to near Grafton in northern NSW.
Deputy NSW Premier Prue Car said there had already been significant flooding in the region and there was high potential for further flooding.
“We know that there is a significant amount of anxiety in the community as we wait for this,” she said.
More than 300 schools have been closed in NSW and are due to remain shut on Monday, and more than 1000 closed in Queensland on Friday.
Over 43,000 homes and businesses in northern NSW are without electricity as heavy wind brought down power lines overnight and in the morning.
Essential Energy warned it could take several days to restore power due to the “extreme conditions”, the damage to infrastructure and the ongoing storms stopping crews from doing their work.
The number of outages is expected to grow in the coming days as winds pick up further and more power poles are felled.
The NSW State Emergency Service received more than 1000 calls for help within 24 hours and performed a handful of rescues due to flash flooding.
More than 100 defence personnel had been deployed to the region in anticipation of another natural disaster, while 23 emergency warnings were in place and 17 evacuation centres operating.
NSW North Coast Minister Rose Jackson said the local community had “endured a hell of a time” over the past few years and were now facing another potential disaster.
Many residents are still living in temporary housing after the previous floods, while others have moved into homes that were badly damaged due to the lack of affordable options.
“I think the community of the Northern Rivers is a really wonderful, strong, resilient community, but understandably this is a really difficult time for them,” Ms Jackson said.
Ms King reminded locals of the importance of staying safe while as the full effects of the cyclone remain to be seen.
“You are living memory, and you need to pass that on,” she said.
“And that’s one of the things that I think is important, that, although we lose material belongings or houses, it’s the living memories that are more important.
“Because they need to be passed down, to share and keep sharing it.”
