‘Three natural disaster events in one’: Northern NSW braces for Cyclone Alfred

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“I want people to act now, relocate now, before those circumstances are occurring. This is not just a rain event, this is a wind event, multiple wind events and then a potential flash flood and flooding event so now is the time to act. By Thursday afternoon and into Thursday evening, it is too late.”

Hundreds of additional SES personnel have been deployed to the Northern Rivers and the Mid North Coast, as well as communication equipment, aviation resources and specialist vehicles. More than 100,000 sandbags were available for those who needed to protect their properties, Wassing said.

Flood watch alerts have been in place since Monday for the Northern Rivers, a region devastated by floods in 2022, and the Mid North Coast.

Offshore waves as big as 10 metres have been recorded east of Coffs Harbour, Golding said.

“This is a very dangerous weather situation and we’re just urging everyone to please keep up to date and heed the advice of emergency services,” Golding said.

The NSW government has closed 121 schools in northern NSW for the rest of the week, an education department spokesperson said.

Minns hoped the impacts on Lismore would be less than the devastating 2022 floods, but was “planning for the worst and hoping for the best”.

Supermarket shelves in the Northern Rivers have been stripped bare since the cyclone warnings were issued, with Minns urging people not to panic buy.

All Qantas and Jetstar flights to Ballina on Wednesday had been cancelled, a Qantas spokesperson said.

Lismore Mayor Steve Krieg said the community, which is still rebuilding after the devastation of record flooding in 2022, was facing the “great unknown” of how badly hit the city would be.

Krieg, who lost his home and business in those floods, said a disaster as bad as 2022 would be demoralising for the community.

“That would break many, many people,” Krieg said. “It would be hard to get up and keep going after that.

“There’s a lot of very fragile people in Lismore and in the region.”

NSW Reconstruction Authority chief executive Mal Lanyon said the authority was “pre-planning for recovery even before we go into a response phase” in the Northern Rivers.

“We will stand alongside you. We understand the trauma of that previous event. I want to make it very clear that we have listened to the messages, and we have learnt from 2022, and we understand that speed to recovery is essential for the community,” he said.

Lanyon said his thoughts were “very much with the people of the Northern Rivers”.

Isolated downpours from Wednesday could bring as much as 800 millimetres of rain in far north-east NSW over several days, while 400 to 600 millimetres is likely in areas 50 to 100 kilometres south of the Queensland border.

Widespread heavy rainfall of up to 400 millimetres is expected to fall in areas between Coffs Harbour and the Queensland border.

The intense rainfall could lead to flash flooding, the weather bureau warned. The heaviest rainfall is expected south of where Alfred makes landfall.

Friday is likely to see the heaviest of the rain before Alfred travels towards inland areas, which will receive between 25 and 100 millimetres over the weekend as the system weakens into a tropical low. Wind gusts of up to 120km/h are expected in some parts of north-east NSW.

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