Cyclone Alfred is bearing down on Queensland so Clairsy & Lisa spoke to Sunrise host Matt Shirvington who is on the scene in a high rise hotel for the latest.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, we're watching things from this side of the country
as the other side of the country prepares for cyclone Alfred.
Sunrise host Matt Shervington is on the Gold Coast and
has very kindly taken a moment to fill us in
with what's happening.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Matt, Hello mate, Welcome morning guys. Yeah, great to be
on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yeah, it's an odd feeling here at the moment. And
I mean, you know, the West is no stranger to
cyclone activity. The Gold Coast essentially where I am, and
even to a lesser extent, the Sunshine Coast and down
to kind of that northeast part of New South.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Wales haven't really experienced.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
A lot of cyclone activity. They've experienced flooding, they've experienced
our big storm cells.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
But this is a little bit odd. So the last
one on.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
The Gold Coast was about fifty years ago, and the
one similar to this size was about seventy years ago.
So a lot of the residents that have been living
here for quite some time don't know what.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
To expect right now. It's strange. And I say that
it's odd because the sun's out.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
And rush it feels like the storm is broken because
this morning. When we started sunrise, it was raining, it
was windy and dark, and now the sun's come out.
But what's happened is so cycloone Alfred was about three
hundred ks offshore last night. Midway through the night, it
did a loop upon itself, so it actually did like
a holding pattern and that's created the break in the storm.
(01:25):
But what's happened, it's done a full revolution and it's
still pushing towards the same region. So it's still going
to hit between the Sunshine Coasts in Queensland and that
Northern Parsan, Northern Rivers in New South Wales around kind
of Byron Bay, Lismore, that sort of area. So it's
still coming. The Prime Minister spoke just a short time ago.
It's still coming. He said, we're not out of danger.
(01:48):
Make sure that you use this window to do your
final preparations. He's offered up three hundred and ten thousand
sandbags and if that sounds like a lot, four hundred
were handed out. Four hundred thousand were handed out across
southeast Queensland yesterday.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Are so people who are doing.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
The preps, they're doing what they can and they're hoping
for the best.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
I think the last time I saw you guys battening
down the hatches like this was cyclone Yazi back in
twenty might have been twenty eleven or something, and I
believe that crossed around Mission Beach, so that was a
lot further north.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, exactly, And I wasn't around then. I didn't cover
that directly. But last year.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Sort of at the tail end of twenty three, it
was was cyclone Jasper and.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
That shit, yes, around that town that.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Sort of north of towns, a more closer to Port Douglas,
and I was up there for that one, and that
was a Category four storm that came through and it
actually dissipated fairly quickly and.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Wasn't as bad as first thought.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
But being through that, and the crazy thing is you
lose power pretty early on when a cyclone comes through
because it affects the energy systems and you're in the dark,
especially if it crosses overnight, and that's potential what could happen.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
It has been delayed a little bit.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
It was going to hit very early on Friday morning,
one am, and that's been pushed back to kind of
even late on Friday afternoon into Saturday, So hopefully if
it does hit it, it will be light and just take
that element out of out of people's fears, because the
anticipation for people here is not knowing what's going to happen.
(03:23):
They now have to wait in another twenty four hours.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
There's a lot of sitting there waiting, but not affected
directly here, but we're definitely directed with friends and family.
And I just checked in with the old man who
lives in NUSA. He's a sort of in the hinterland
and he's up there and he said, we're just, yes,
somewhere here, we're just sitting and waiting. So that's part
of them let's do all the prep. But there's a
lot of people waiting in those areas.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
And you would have seen some of the sea swell
come through right through that Sunshine Coast area NUSA especially.
I mean, the surfaces have been having a field day.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I'm literally sitting just.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
In the car in the car park at Burley Beach
and the waves are just ment, They're just massive. And
most of us would know from in the state coming
up to surface Paradise or the scene parks, or we
know that there's this expanse of golden beaches, Well that's gone.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
It's all been eroded away.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
So it's definitely a change and it's definitely a sense
of what's to come, but we just don't know quotematically.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
What becomes biggest concern or is it sort of being
cut off from power and whatnot. I've seen the supermarket
shells obviously be empty.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yeah, the Premier, the premiere summed it up. So the
Queensland Premier, David Christo Folly sums.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
It up really well. He said, it's basically three phases.
The first phase is that that sees.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Well which will come in a road a lot of
those kind of coastal areas and you've got to be
mindful obviously if you have residents or businesses that are
really close to the sands edge. That's kind of where
we're aut at the moment. And then phase two is
the wind. The wind will kind of pre empt the
storm coming through and that's going to whip up a
lot that's going to move a lot of things around,
and people need to prepare for that. They need to
(05:01):
tie things down, they need to and bring things inside,
they need to tape up windows and they're doing that
will be the storm surge, which will be the increase
in the ocean levels, and that could increase buy up
to a meter based on the tide. So if it
comes through at high tide and that surge coincides with it,
it could be a massive tidal surge.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
And then you've also.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Got the rain, and the rain is the thing that
will be hanging around for a long time. And the
fact that it's only going seven k's an hour cyclone
ol for it is that it's carrying a lot of
rain in the system so upwards. I mean they're saying
around the Gold Coast at the moment, it could get
to around eight hundred millimeters of rain in that short
period of time that it's crossing.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
So that becomes a bit of an issue obviously, with.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
The storm surge and the rain prolonged in an isolated
area for a period of time.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
The other thing, Matt, is when we picture the Gold
Coast over here, we picture all those high rises along
the Gold Coast coast. Are they made to cope with
situation like this or is this all a bit unprecedented
and time?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, Well, as I said, the last big one, which
was Cyclone Wonder that came through nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
That was the last big one.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
So if you've been up to the Goalie any any
in a recent trip, you'll know that there's been a
lot of development in the last fifteen years, and there's
a lot of tall towers. Look, I'm not an engineer.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I don't know one thing.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I do know though, apparently, And I'm on the nineteenth
floor of the hotel we're staying in at the moment.
I'm almost thinking I might just get a lower floor
just in case.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
We designed to around.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Well, some of those taller towers they actually shift. I
don't know if I want to kind of sleep through
that it might of bed But yeah, I'm after something
on the more conservative fifth.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Floor or something like that in the basement, please the
basement in a flood happy medium in the middle.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
And that we've seen events like the Green Day Gig
and you know, so the AFL Games and all that
moved or postponed or whatever. But wouldn't you think we
should have a more threatening name than Elford, maybe Voldemort
or something. Alford just doesn't sound.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Well, you know, how oardy is it? And a reflection
of the Goldie too. They're all calling it Cyclone Alfhi.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Here's it all about it on the best.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yes, we we are thinking about you, and I mean
one thing about cyclones is you never know what's going
to happen. And it has been pushed back and pushed back.
It could it could just go away, you know, I.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Could just yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Saying it won't dissipate but left.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah, you never know, Matt, stay safe. Thanks, thanks for
your time.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Nice one.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
You two guys.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Good luck on level nineteen. But shaken.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, I'm taken all about level nineteen.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
They to move, then they move a few centimeters as well.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Yeah it feels bit he or you up there. It
does too rigid. It's not good.
Well, we're watching things from this side of the country
as the other side of the country prepares for cyclone Alfred.
Sunrise host Matt Shervington is on the Gold Coast and
has very kindly taken a moment to fill us in
with what's happening.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Matt, Hello mate, Welcome morning guys. Yeah, great to be
on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yeah, it's an odd feeling here at the moment. And
I mean, you know, the West is no stranger to
cyclone activity. The Gold Coast essentially where I am, and
even to a lesser extent, the Sunshine Coast and down
to kind of that northeast part of New South.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Wales haven't really experienced.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
A lot of cyclone activity. They've experienced flooding, they've experienced
our big storm cells.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
But this is a little bit odd. So the last
one on.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
The Gold Coast was about fifty years ago, and the
one similar to this size was about seventy years ago.
So a lot of the residents that have been living
here for quite some time don't know what.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
To expect right now. It's strange. And I say that
it's odd because the sun's out.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
And rush it feels like the storm is broken because
this morning. When we started sunrise, it was raining, it
was windy and dark, and now the sun's come out.
But what's happened is so cycloone Alfred was about three
hundred ks offshore last night. Midway through the night, it
did a loop upon itself, so it actually did like
a holding pattern and that's created the break in the storm.
(01:25):
But what's happened, it's done a full revolution and it's
still pushing towards the same region. So it's still going
to hit between the Sunshine Coasts in Queensland and that
Northern Parsan, Northern Rivers in New South Wales around kind
of Byron Bay, Lismore, that sort of area. So it's
still coming. The Prime Minister spoke just a short time ago.
It's still coming. He said, we're not out of danger.
(01:48):
Make sure that you use this window to do your
final preparations. He's offered up three hundred and ten thousand
sandbags and if that sounds like a lot, four hundred
were handed out. Four hundred thousand were handed out across
southeast Queensland yesterday.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Are so people who are doing.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
The preps, they're doing what they can and they're hoping
for the best.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
I think the last time I saw you guys battening
down the hatches like this was cyclone Yazi back in
twenty might have been twenty eleven or something, and I
believe that crossed around Mission Beach, so that was a
lot further north.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, exactly, And I wasn't around then. I didn't cover
that directly. But last year.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Sort of at the tail end of twenty three, it
was was cyclone Jasper and.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
That shit, yes, around that town that.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Sort of north of towns, a more closer to Port Douglas,
and I was up there for that one, and that
was a Category four storm that came through and it
actually dissipated fairly quickly and.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Wasn't as bad as first thought.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
But being through that, and the crazy thing is you
lose power pretty early on when a cyclone comes through
because it affects the energy systems and you're in the dark,
especially if it crosses overnight, and that's potential what could happen.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
It has been delayed a little bit.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
It was going to hit very early on Friday morning,
one am, and that's been pushed back to kind of
even late on Friday afternoon into Saturday, So hopefully if
it does hit it, it will be light and just take
that element out of out of people's fears, because the
anticipation for people here is not knowing what's going to happen.
(03:23):
They now have to wait in another twenty four hours.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
There's a lot of sitting there waiting, but not affected
directly here, but we're definitely directed with friends and family.
And I just checked in with the old man who
lives in NUSA. He's a sort of in the hinterland
and he's up there and he said, we're just, yes,
somewhere here, we're just sitting and waiting. So that's part
of them let's do all the prep. But there's a
lot of people waiting in those areas.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
And you would have seen some of the sea swell
come through right through that Sunshine Coast area NUSA especially.
I mean, the surfaces have been having a field day.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I'm literally sitting just.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
In the car in the car park at Burley Beach
and the waves are just ment, They're just massive. And
most of us would know from in the state coming
up to surface Paradise or the scene parks, or we
know that there's this expanse of golden beaches, Well that's gone.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
It's all been eroded away.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
So it's definitely a change and it's definitely a sense
of what's to come, but we just don't know quotematically.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
What becomes biggest concern or is it sort of being
cut off from power and whatnot. I've seen the supermarket
shells obviously be empty.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yeah, the Premier, the premiere summed it up. So the
Queensland Premier, David Christo Folly sums.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
It up really well. He said, it's basically three phases.
The first phase is that that sees.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Well which will come in a road a lot of
those kind of coastal areas and you've got to be
mindful obviously if you have residents or businesses that are
really close to the sands edge. That's kind of where
we're aut at the moment. And then phase two is
the wind. The wind will kind of pre empt the
storm coming through and that's going to whip up a
lot that's going to move a lot of things around,
and people need to prepare for that. They need to
(05:01):
tie things down, they need to and bring things inside,
they need to tape up windows and they're doing that
will be the storm surge, which will be the increase
in the ocean levels, and that could increase buy up
to a meter based on the tide. So if it
comes through at high tide and that surge coincides with it,
it could be a massive tidal surge.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
And then you've also.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Got the rain, and the rain is the thing that
will be hanging around for a long time. And the
fact that it's only going seven k's an hour cyclone
ol for it is that it's carrying a lot of
rain in the system so upwards. I mean they're saying
around the Gold Coast at the moment, it could get
to around eight hundred millimeters of rain in that short
period of time that it's crossing.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
So that becomes a bit of an issue obviously, with.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
The storm surge and the rain prolonged in an isolated
area for a period of time.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
The other thing, Matt, is when we picture the Gold
Coast over here, we picture all those high rises along
the Gold Coast coast. Are they made to cope with
situation like this or is this all a bit unprecedented
and time?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, Well, as I said, the last big one, which
was Cyclone Wonder that came through nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
That was the last big one.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
So if you've been up to the Goalie any any
in a recent trip, you'll know that there's been a
lot of development in the last fifteen years, and there's
a lot of tall towers. Look, I'm not an engineer.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I don't know one thing.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I do know though, apparently, And I'm on the nineteenth
floor of the hotel we're staying in at the moment.
I'm almost thinking I might just get a lower floor
just in case.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
We designed to around.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Well, some of those taller towers they actually shift. I
don't know if I want to kind of sleep through
that it might of bed But yeah, I'm after something
on the more conservative fifth.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Floor or something like that in the basement, please the
basement in a flood happy medium in the middle.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
And that we've seen events like the Green Day Gig
and you know, so the AFL Games and all that
moved or postponed or whatever. But wouldn't you think we
should have a more threatening name than Elford, maybe Voldemort
or something. Alford just doesn't sound.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Well, you know, how oardy is it? And a reflection
of the Goldie too. They're all calling it Cyclone Alfhi.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Here's it all about it on the best.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yes, we we are thinking about you, and I mean
one thing about cyclones is you never know what's going
to happen. And it has been pushed back and pushed back.
It could it could just go away, you know, I.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Could just yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Saying it won't dissipate but left.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah, you never know, Matt, stay safe. Thanks, thanks for
your time.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Nice one.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
You two guys.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Good luck on level nineteen. But shaken.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, I'm taken all about level nineteen.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
They to move, then they move a few centimeters as well.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Yeah it feels bit he or you up there. It
does too rigid. It's not good.
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