Cyclone Alfred latest updates: More than 250,000 homes without power as ‘life-threatening’ storm nears land

A search has been launched after a man was swept into gushing floodwaters in northern New South Wales today, despite his desperate attempt to secure himself to a tree.

Emergency services responded to calls of a man being washed off a bridge and into the floodwaters at 2.20pm local time.

The man was driving across Wild Cattle Creek Bridge off Old Coramba Rd, Megan, a NSW Police media release said, when he got hit by floodwaters.

The man exited the car and tried to cling to a tree branch, 30m from the river bank, and officers were communicating with him when he lost his grip.

At 3pm he was seen going into the fast running water and has not been seen since.

Police are conducting ground searches as they await aerial assistance.

Queensland supermarkets will be shut from afternoon, the deputy premier said, as cyclone Alfred is causing heavy winds and flooding.

“As we have been told by the Bureau of Meteorology, Tropical Cyclone Alfred is likely to hit shore or land midday tomorrow and then it is important for the workers of the supermarkets to be where they need to be, as safe as possible,” Jarrod Bleijie said.

“For Queenslanders, you will progressively see supermarkets closing, including your local groceries and supermarkets. But … shout out to all the workers who have come back to work to keep supermarkets open for as long as possible in the preparation for Tropical Cyclone Alfred hitting the shores.”

Parts of Gold Coast have gone dark, with telecommunications services severed for many people.

Acting Queensland police commissioner Shane Chelepy said outages have been reported after 26 mobile base stations lost power and ran out of back-up battery supplies.

“NBN (National Broadband Network) outages, which affect the landlines are also occurring in those same areas and the moment it is safe to do so, our telcos, who we have been engaged with, will get into those areas and try to get generation to those stations,” he said.

He said affected suburbs included Balinga, Balinga North, Binna Burra, Burleigh Waters and Coolangatta among other areas.

The Redlands Satellite Health Centre has temporarily closed due to the risk of flooding, Queensland premier David Crisafulli has confirmed. While the facility is shut as a precaution, critical medical equipment has been relocated to ensure it remains safe. All other hospitals continue to operate and are open for emergency care.

The Queensland Fire Department has responded to 20 incidents today, while police have received 76 calls for assistance.

Authorities have also reported that 59 roads on the Gold Coast have been impacted by the severe weather.

Emergency crews have door-knocked 9,000 homes to warn residents about the potential dangers.

In response to the worsening conditions, councils have now declared 30 disaster refuges across the region.

Queensland premier David Crisafulli said the major concern at the moment is the significant erosion on the beaches along the Gold Coast.

“We still don’t have reports of inundation, which is tremendous,” he said in a press briefing.

“I have an update regarding some significant erosion, to the rock wall on the coast.

“There’s extreme erosion between the Southport Surf Lifesaving club and Narrow Neck, and the council engineers are actually assessing the damage at the moment, but there is some real risk to some of those council assets, including some of the stairs and the viewing platforms.”

He warned of some real risk to some of those council assets and said some people were still in the danger zones, requiring rescue.

“Council is in the process of trying to cordon of that area and the acting [police] commissioner has only just tasked some resources from police as well, but the message to people, surely, is standing on a viewing platform in the middle of an event like this is not something you should be doing.”

Lithuanian rower Aurimas Mockus collapsed in relief as he embraced his wife for the first time since being rescued from the dangerous waters stirred up by Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

Bearing visible cuts and bruises, the 44-year-old described the ordeal as feeling like he was trapped inside a washing machine while waiting for help to arrive.

Mr Mockus was on a rowing journey from San Diego to Brisbane when he found himself in the path of the powerful system off the Queensland coast.

Amid fierce winds reaching 100kmph and towering waves between 5 and 7 metres, he sent out a distress signal last week. He was contacted next day and rescued.

“I spent that time wet in my boat rolling around — I rolled maybe 30 times, maybe more,” he said.

“The last three days in my boat I was fighting for my life because my boat was sinking and all navigation was going off.

“I only had VHF radio [and] I had a lot of problems with my body.”

An hourly update on the movement of Cyclone Alfred shows that it is 90km east of Gold Coast and 125km east of Brisbane.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said it is moving south-west at a speed of 8kmph and that it will likely cross the coast of the mainland later on Saturday.

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses remain without power across southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales as Cyclone Alfred continues to batter the region.

Energy provider Energex reported that outages in southeast Queensland had risen to 46,036 customers from 39,129 earlier in the day.

In New South Wales, Essential Energy’s latest update indicated 43,000 properties were affected, though officials later confirmed this had been reduced to just over 36,000.

In total, at least 82,000 properties across both states remain without electricity as the cyclone disrupts infrastructure and intensifies weather conditions.

Heavy rains drenched some regions in northern New South Wales ahead of Cyclone Alfred’s landfall on Saturday, with more than 400mm dumped over the last 48 hours, exceeding the mean total for March, data showed, as residents scrambled to save properties from possible flooding.

New South Wales business owner Thomas Gough has been busy putting sandbags at his shop in Lismore, a rural town of about 700km (435 miles) north of Sydney devastated by major floods in 2022.

“It’s a beautiful place to live most of the time, but it feels like we have one-in-100-year events every five years – there’s nothing we can do about it,” Mr Gough told ABC News.