BRISBANE – Early wind and rain from a rare tropical cyclone began lashing part of eastern Australia on Thursday as schools were closed, public transport was stopped and desperate residents got around shortages of sandbags by buying potting mix.

Tropical Cyclone Alfred is forecast to cross the Queensland state coast somewhere between the Sunshine Coast region and the city of Gold Coast to the south early Saturday, Bureau of Meteorology manager Matt Collopy said.

Between the two tourist strips is the state capital Brisbane, Australia’s third-most populous city which will host the 2032 Olympic Games.

“The wind impacts, we’re already seeing those start to develop on the exposed locations along our coast with gusts reaching 80-to-90 kph (50-to-56 mph). We are expecting those to continue to develop,” Collopy told reporters in Brisbane.

Alfred is expected to become the first cyclone to cross the coast near Brisbane since Cyclone Zoe hit Gold Coast in 1974 and brought widespread flooding.

Cyclones are common in Queensland’s tropical north but are rare in the state’s temperate and densely populated southeast corner that borders New South Wales state.

More than 4 million people lie in the cyclone’s path.

Winds and flooding forecast

Alfred was 280 kilometers (170 miles) east of Brisbane and moving west Thursday with sustained winds near the center of 95 kph (59 mph) and gusting to 130 kph (81 mph), Collopy said.

The storm is expected to maintain its wind strength before hitting land. But the greatest fears are for the expected flooding over a wide area. Modeling shows that up to 20,000 homes in Brisbane, a city largely built on a river floodplain, could experience some level of flooding.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said 660 schools in southern Queensland and 280 schools in northern New South Wales were closed Thursday as weather conditions worsen.

The federal government had delivered 310,000 sandbags to Brisbane and more were on the way, Albanese said.

“My message to people, whether they be in southeast Queensland or northern New South Wales, is we are there to support you. We have your back,” Albanese told reporters in the national capital Canberra.

A shortage of sandbags in Brisbane, a city of more than 3 million people, led some to buy sacks of potting mix as an alternative, according to Damien Effeney, a chief executive of a rural supplies business.

“I think between availability and the time that people have to queue to get sandbags, they’re just making the easier choice and grabbing potting mix,” Effeney told Australian Broadcasting Corp., adding one customer bought 30 bags from his store at Samford on Brisbane’s northwest fringe.

Public transport in the effected area was stopped from Thursday and hospitals were limited to performing emergency surgeries until the danger had passed.

Power outages and rising rivers already

Strong winds had cut power to 4,500 homes and businesses in northern New South Wales on Thursday, officials said.

Rivers were rising across the region due to rain and emergency teams expected to soon start evacuating residents from low-lying areas on the New South Wales side of the border.

The coast near the border has been battered for days by abnormally high tides and seas. A 12.3-meter (40-foot) high wave recorded off a popular Gold Coast beach on Wednesday night was a record for the area, officials said.

Residents in the cyclone’s path gained an additional 24 hours to batten down after meteorologists revised their forecast from Wednesday of the cyclone making land late Thursday or early Friday.

But the cyclone’s slower progress toward the coast had a downside, meteorologist Jane Golding said.

“We’ll have longer for the rain to fall and the wind to do the damage,” Golding said.

___

McGuirk reported from Melbourne, Australia.