# Here on the Gold Coast, we’re preparing for the worst but hoping for the best as the storm approaches

Cavill Mall – that unashamedly garish stretch of fast-food joints, fashion outlets and assorted tourist traps in central Surfers Paradise – should have been pumping this week. Thousands of people had flown in to see US rock band Green Day last night, and the  Suns were due to host the opening game of the AFL season against Essendon on Thursday.

Not happening. They can’t even fly home. Coolangatta airport closed at 4pm on Wednesday.

In Cavill, many of those businesses in one of the busiest streets in one of the biggest tourist strips in Australia not already locked down tight by Wednesday afternoon were busy taping up windows, sandbagging doorways and sending staff home. Police are going door to door warning locals in lower lying areas (like us) of what is coming, and suggesting that the moment to move people, pets and cars to higher ground is closing.

For the tourists standing on the balcony of the surf club looking at massive waves pounding the foreshores late on Wednesday it’s a case of “OK, now I understand why they cancelled the footy and the concert, and the front entry to the Paradise Centre shopping mall is closed off with security tape and a wall of sandbags”.



Along this 30km beach strip in a city of 750,000 people (plus tourists), where countless crane towers dot the skyline like giant palm trees, building workers were scrambling to secure high-rise construction sites against gale-force winds and lower level inundation.

Schools are closed, public transport has been suspended, and the city is going into a de facto lock down reminiscent of the Covid pandemic where people are being advised to stay home unless absolutely necessary.

Long queues of cars are snaking around roads near council sandbag depots and normally busy waterways – this is a city with more canals than Venice – are empty aside from early bits of debris washing from upstream.

Like the rest of south-east  and northern New South Wales panic buyers have stripped supermarket shelves bare of bottled water, pasta, batteries, canned food and other basic goods. And yes, the toilet paper hoarding fetish is still a thing. Do these people realise that if things are so dire they need a stockpile of 100 rolls of bum wipes then they probably won’t have any water to flush the loo anyway?



Finding gas for a barbecue right now would be like buying a winning lottery ticket, and even a loaf of bread was a bridge too far in most shops by mid-morning Wednesday.

For the Gold Coast this is new. Parts of the city were hit hard in the 2022 floods, but this is the first serious cyclone since 1974 and the first direct hit since the place was little more than a sleepy beachside town in 1954.

There are now 400km of canals, thousands of waterfront homes, and entire suburbs built out of what used to be swamp lands. In recent years the city’s population has exploded with interstate and overseas arrivals and sea changers from Brisbane and elsewhere. Most have never experienced a cyclone.

This has led to a mixture of ignorance and complacency at one end of the spectrum and panic at the other.

For a city full of people who are not cyclone savvy, far too many are dismissing it as a “just a big storm”; something that might give us a light show, a lot of wind and water and then just blow over. For those who are quite aware of what may befall us, there is a fair bit of anger aimed at the Gold Coast mayor, Tom Tate – who still isn’t back from his Las Vegas trip for the NRL extravaganza last weekend – on social media.

Explaining to neighbours from interstate and overseas – without being alarmist – that this is a multi-day event, with king tides, storm surges, shredding winds and hundreds of millimetres of rain is challenging. Many have never experienced extended disruptions to power or water supply, flooded roads and shortages of basics.

Some would struggle to survive without Uber Eats, let alone think to fill a bathtub full of fresh water just in case. But people are looking out for each other and largely, preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best.

**Read more of Guardian Australia’s  coverage:**

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