Surviving the storm

Everyone is probably fed up to their eye teeth with cyclone talk after Ex Tropical Cyclone Alfred has stopped pirouetting and taken his final bows before exiting stage left and leaving a trail of damage in his wake, but there are some lessons to be learnt.

It was good to be forewarned about a week in advance while he was still hundreds of kilometres offshore, but some would say the coverage was over-hyped, over-politicised and over-televised.

For several days before Alfie finally crossed the coast, we had reporters stationed everywhere from northern New South Wales, the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Moreton Bay, Caloundra, Maroochydore, all standing outdoors and telling us not to be complacent, the cyclone really was coming.

Many looked drenched even when it wasn't raining, and some wags have suggested their camera crews might have kept a hose handy to give them that dramatic wet-haired look.

Then we had politicians such as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen, various Greens and Teals such as Zali Steggall blaming "climate change" for making cyclones more frequent and severe.

The Climate Council also weighed in with the same predictable theme, but nothing could be further from the truth. Cyclones this far south might be relatively rare but Alfred was just one of a long conga line, and cyclones have actually decreased in frequency and intensity.

Queensland scientist and climate guru Dr Jennifer Marohasy posted a report while Alfie was still making very slow progress towards the coast which included the following:

Contrary to popular narratives cyclones are not becoming more intense, and their frequency is waning. CSIRO research has confirmed a statistically significant downward trend in the annual number of tropical cyclones in the Australian region over the period extending from 1981/82 to 2017/18 that is during the satellite period. The intensity of these cyclones is also in decline…

During the period 1935 to 1974 every other year there was a cyclone making landfall as far south as Brisbane and into New South Wales. This was a period of much more cyclone activity. There were two cyclones that made landfall as far south as New South Wales in 1934: on January 30th and then again on February 19th. Two cyclones also made landfall in New South Wales in 1959: TC Beatrice and TC Connie. These four cyclones are listed in a journal article by J.L. Gray et al. entitled 'On the Recent Hiatus of Tropical Cyclones Landfalling in NSW, Australia' published in the Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science in 2020.

The most extreme cyclone to hit Queensland, Tropical Cyclone Mahina, was arguably the world's most intense with a central pressure recorded at 880 hectopascals, a 12-metre storm surge, and 300 kilometre per hour winds. That was in 1899 – 126 years ago.

A Wikipedia search shows that Mahina struck Bathurst Bay, Cape York Peninsula, on March 4 1899, and its winds and enormous storm surge combined to cause the deaths of more than 300 people.

"The Great Gold Coast Cyclone" which struck on February 20, 1954, also caused widespread damage and about 30 fatalities.

So, while Alfred caused some serious flooding, building damage and reportedly the biggest power blackouts in history, on the scale of things we probably got off fairly lightly. My sympathies are with all those who did suffer, but newsflash for Albo, Zali and co … there weren't any coal fired power stations in 1899 and no one had heard of anthropogenic climate change back in 1954.

Here in our northern Sunshine Coast enclave just behind the beach, we were very lucky - despite daily warnings of potential strong winds and rainfall of up to 800 mm, we remained practically becalmed until after Alfie crossed the coast, then some moderate winds and just enough rain to top up the pool and big rainwater tank after several days with no rain at all.

(We have town water but the tank was mandated by the authorities back when they believed Professor Tim Flannery's warning rivers would never flow again and "even the rain that falls will not be enough to fill our dams.." That was a few years before the big Brisbane / SEQ floods of 2011, and the many which Australia has experienced regularly since then. Oops!)

But when it comes to cyclones, having lived all my life in The Sunshine State, including North and Central Queensland, I do have some skin in the game when it comes to their ducking, weaving, deceiving and knock-out blows.

Delving into a chapter from my past, one of these involved Cyclone Simon, which caused havoc as far south as Fraser Island (K'gari) 45 years before Alfred:

The Observer newsroom was a hive of activity back in February 1980 as Cyclone Simon moved down the coast leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. We received news mid-afternoon that a three-masted sailing boat, the Thisbe, had been wrecked on Lady Elliot Island at the southern tip of The Great Barrier Reef about 150 km southeast of Gladstone. What a great front page scoop that would make if we could get a first-hand report...

The weather in Gladstone was relatively calm after the tail of the cyclone had passed, and according to the latest information it was creating havoc further south on Fraser Island. What were the chances of chartering a light aircraft and flying over the shipwreck to get some photos and an eye-witness account?

I called my chief photographer Murray Ware into my office and suggested a flight to him. Murray was up for it, he lived opposite Gladstone Airport and he had a mate who operated a charter business, so a flight was quickly organised.

I had a team of reporters and I could have asked for volunteers to occupy the other passenger seat, but this was something I wanted to do myself. Was it going to be dangerous? Probably no more than any other single engine flight unless Simon decided to change course.

Should I call my wife Cathy and tell her what we were doing? No way, what she doesn't know can't hurt her.

Before we left, I issued a general instruction to the newsroom: "If my wife calls, tell her I'm out of the office on business - don't tell her I'm chasing after the cyclone in a light plane…"

After a relatively uneventful flight, the pilot banked the small plane and Murray leant out the side window to snap some pictures while I formed a mental picture of the scene below, including a few humans on the beach, waving as we circled overhead. …The crew obviously had a miraculous escape, but when we made our way back to The Observer newsroom, I wasn't so lucky. I was greeted by the sports editor, who gave me the ominous message:

"Call your wife, she's freaking out about you…"

"What do you mean 'freaking out'? What did you tell her?"

"Oh I just said that you and Murray had taken off in a plane to get some footage of the cyclone damage down on Fraser Island".

"What the f---? We didn't go anywhere near bloody Fraser Island! Didn't you hear me tell everyone not to tell her anything about planes or cyclones?"

"Er, no, I didn't hear that…"

Good one mate. I knew I was in for a blast from Cyclone Cathy at home base that would outdo Cyclone Simon, but no good putting it off, so I called her and tried to weather the storm.

"Are you crazy or do you have a death wish? Don't you care about me and the boys?"

"Maybe, no, and yes." Finally, she calmed down when I assured her it was a calm flight, and I returned to the task of writing the page one scoop featuring one of Murray's excellent photos and my eye witness report (which beat the big metro dailies.)

The island is now a thriving tourist resort and its Facebook page includes this account:

"The Thisbe ran aground onLady Elliot Island after enduring a nightmare ride through the clutches of Cyclone Simon.

"The vessel was heading north from Sydney and ran into the first heavy weather off Sandy Cape on Monday 25 February, 1980. They battled cyclonic winds and swells up to 20 to 30 meters high, before the engine failed and a huge wave smashed into the chart room and washed over the radio. As a result of the heavy pounding of the monstrous seas, the seams of the boat began to open up.

"The five men aboard the Thisbe hoped for a miracle until two days later when they saw Lady Elliot Island about 5kms to the north-west. With three anchors out to slow the impending crunch, The Thisbe came to a sudden halt on the outer reef. All crew made it safely to shore with the help of the lighthouse keepers.

They really were lucky!