Updated
The community of Lockhart River is in lockdown this afternoon, with the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) radar showing the destructive core of Severe Tropical Cyclone Trevor starting to cross the Queensland coast about 4:00pm.
Key points:
- BOM warns wind gusts at the core of cyclone Trevor may reach 220kph
- Some Lockhart River residents are evacuated to temporary shelters
- Parts of Far North Queensland are preparing for days of heavy rain and possible flooding
Cyclone Trevor is a category three system, and at 1:00pm it was 70 kilometres east south-east of Lockhart River on the Cape York Peninsula coast.
The BOM issued an emergency alert for the Lockhart River community, which was told to expect destructive winds from 3:00pm.
The main road into Cape York — the Peninsula Development Road — was closed and the Lockhart State School was closed for the day.
The BOM warned the cyclone’s “very destructive core”, which has gusts of up to 220kph, could make landfall between Cape Grenville and Coen.
BOM Queensland manager Bruce Gunn said he expected the eye of the storm, containing the most damaging winds, to pass south of Lockhart River.
“At this stage, we’re not expecting any populated settlements to be particularly inundated but there will be coastal erosion and inundation further south,” Mr Gunn said.
“Trevor will weaken as it travels over land once it crosses the coast, but we expect it to re-intensify again once it gets into the Gulf of Carpentaria and it could be quite a larger system by then.”
Forecasters expected significant falls through the Cape, Cooktown and down to Cairns and urged locals to look out for flood warnings.
Lockhart River Mayor Wayne Butcher said the town was battening down for strong winds.
“We’ve just had the police go round and have a siren go in the community just to let everyone know we want everybody indoors. We’re shutting down the whole community until the cyclone passes later on tonight,” Mr Butcher said.
“It’s actually the same path Cyclone Monica crossed in around about 2006. We’ve had a few practices in the last few years so the people are more prepared.
“The only concerns we had were more with the elderly. I think we’ve just got to batten down and prepare to weather the storm.”
Owner of Coen’s Exchange Hotel, Barry Mulley, said while the cyclone was tracking to impact areas further north of the town, locals remained on high alert.
Earlier in the day, Mr Mulley had been concerned Coen was “getting smashed”, saying the wind was “really starting to howl now”.
“We’ve cleaned up all the yards, the sheds and tied all our boats down and trailers,” Mr Mulley said.
“Apparently it’s going to miss us.
“We’ve got a couple of palettes of water, made sure our meat was fully stocked, but we’d have enough meat in the pub now to run the town for two months.
“The town is fairly well prepared. We do have good cops here, we’ve got a couple of old-school nurses and we do have a doctor in town and of course our reliable flying doctor on standby as well.”
‘It’s the last thing we need’
Further south, Douglas Shire is expecting falls in excess of 200 millimetres for the next three days.
The area has been drenched already this summer, with previous storms costing an estimated $15 million in damage.
Mayor Julia Leu said the prospect of more torrential rain was concerning.
“Frankly, it’s the last thing we need. We’re still underway with a massive recovery job as a result of the record flooding that we had over the Australia Day weekend so we really don’t want any more rain — but we are prepared,” she said.
Far North district officer chief Superintendent Brian Huxley said extra SES crews and police had been deployed to Cape York in preparation for the cyclone.
“Each season there are people who make really poor decisions by walking through or driving through flooded roads and creeks and get themselves into strife.
“Nobody can tell what is going to happen with flash flooding. We all know what’s floating around in the water up there, snakes, crocodiles and everything else, so people just need to be really careful.”
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