Gold Coast beaches to take years to recover from Cyclone Alfred
Four months after the storm battered Queensland's coast, some of the city's most popular stretches of sand remain badly damaged raising fears that major events could be disrupted or cancelled.
The city has already lost the Pacific Airshow, which was expected to inject $33 million into the local economy, after organisers pulled out due to the poor beach conditions.
At Narrowneck, fresh footage shows the beach still closed, with warning signs in place and large drops where sand has been washed away.
Local beachgoers told 7NEWS the damage is like nothing they've seen before.
'There's a three-metre drop down a rock wall now, it's not like past times when it was just sand,' one visitor said.
Another added, 'You can't really get down to the beach here, it's disappointing to see.'
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate initially promised the beaches would be repaired by April, even joking in March anyone who thought otherwise could call him out over a beer.
But yesterday he delivered a much grimmer update.
'It's going to take two years to recover from what Alfred did to us,' Tate said.
One local quipped it would cost the mayor 'a couple more beers than he promised.'
Griffith University expert Dr Guilherme Vieira da Silva confirmed the extent of the damage is some of the worst he's seen.
'In terms of beach erosion, we've actually seen a fair bit of erosion, so this is up there with the most intense storms on record,' he said.
The economic fallout is also mounting, with organisers warning ongoing beach damage could threaten future events and tourism.
So far only the Pacific Airshow has been cancelled, but the potential for more disruptions is growing.
In an effort to restore the coastline, a 7.7-kilometre underground pipeline has been switched on, pumping sand to Main Beach, Narrowneck and Surfers Paradise.
A dredging barge is also operating offshore.
Tate said 87 per cent of the beaches remain open and are still being enjoyed by locals and tourists.
'So as far as being an asset for people and tourists alike, it is useable,' he said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
7NEWS
7 days ago
- 7NEWS
Longest-ever lightning bolt stretched 829km across US
The longest lightning bolt ever recorded measured 829km and stretched nearly from eastern Texas to Kansas City in the United States, according to recent measurements by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The 'megaflash' lightning bolt occurred in October 2017, in a region known for violent thunderstorms. The WMO noted in a press release on Thursday that it would take a car eight or nine hours to cover this distance, and an aeroplane at least 90 minutes. The lightning flash lasted 7.8 seconds. Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today 'The new record lightning flash occurred in one of the hotspots for Mesoscale Convective System thunderstorms, whose dynamics permit extraordinary megaflashes to occur,' the WMO said. The previous record-holding blitz was 768km long and occurred in April 2020 in the southern United States. The margin of error for both measurements is plus or minus 8km. Satellite data allows measurements of lightning bolts and other weather phenomena that were not possible in the past. The new record lightning bolt was verified during an analysis of the 2017 storm using satellite technology, the WMO said. The same department in the WMO also examines other extreme events such as heat, hail size, wind speed, and hurricanes. The WMO highlighted other record lightning strikes, including the longest ever lightning bolt that lasted 17.1 seconds over Uruguay and Argentina in June 2020; and the deadliest strike on record when 21 people sheltering in a Zimbabwean hut died at once in 1975.
7NEWS
10-07-2025
- 7NEWS
Crews comb flood-stricken Texas for 170 missing people
Search teams are sifting through mounds of debris in Texas Hill Country as hopes of finding more survivors dimmed five days after flash floods tore through the region, killing at least 119 people including many children. As of Tuesday evening (Wednesday AEST), there were more than 170 people still unaccounted for, according to figures provided by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Searchers have not found anyone alive since Friday. Most of the fatalities and missing people were in Kerr County. Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today The county seat, Kerrville, was devastated when torrential rains lashed the area early on Friday, dropping more than 300mm of rain in less than an hour and swelling the Guadalupe River to a height of nearly nine metres. The death toll in Kerr County was 95 as of Wednesday morning, Sheriff Larry Leitha told reporters at a briefing, including three dozen children. That figure includes at least 27 campers and counsellors from Camp Mystic, a Christian girls' summer retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe. Authorities have warned the death toll will likely keep rising as floodwaters recede. Elsewhere on Tuesday, three people died in New Mexico, two of them young children, when a flash flood swept through the village of Ruidoso in mountains around 215km southeast of Albuquerque, the state's largest city. The flooding was sparked by heavy rain that fell on wildfire burn scars, causing a rapid runoff of water that saw the Rio Ruidoso River rise to a record 20 feet, five feet higher than its previous historical high, the village said in a statement. Public officials in Texas have faced days of questions about whether they could have warned people sooner, giving them time to move to higher ground ahead of the raging floodwaters. At Wednesday's briefing, the sheriff was again pressed to address questions about how long it took for officials to respond to 'Code Red' alerts about the flash flooding during the early hours of July 4. He declined to respond directly, saying his focus was on finding the missing victims and that a full analysis of what went wrong with the response would come later. 'We will answer those questions,' he said. 'I can't tell you when - a week or two, okay? We're going to get to them. We're not trying to deflect them.' Scientists say climate change has made extreme flood events more frequent and damaging by creating warmer, wetter weather patterns. Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice has said the amount of rainfall exceeded predictions and fell so fast that there was not enough time to order evacuations without further endangering people. Abbott said on Tuesday that the Texas legislature would convene a special session later in July to investigate the emergency response and provide funding for disaster relief.
AU Financial Review
09-07-2025
- AU Financial Review
Step inside one of the nation's most extraordinary new homes
As Cyclone Alfred lashed the coast of Byron Bay earlier this year, the inhabitants of the recently completed 'Lighthouse' residence marvelled calmly at the spectacle of Mother Nature in full cry. It was not just the fact that the house they'd commissioned from Brisbane's BVN architects is built like a fortress and able to resist the onslaught of a tropical storm; it was also that, being totally open to the north and surrounded by native forest, it offers an immersion in the elements. 'It was awesome,' recalls the owner, who requested to remain anonymous. He moved here with his wife and four children from Brisbane last winter. 'Tall trees were bent over and whipping about, but not only did we feel incredibly secure, we felt like this was an unparalleled experience of nature.'
