Latest news with #SeanKearns
ABC News
18-05-2025
- Climate
- ABC News
Weather warnings issued for parts of NSW as flash floods hit coastal areas
The New South Wales State Emergency Service (SES) is urging communities across the Hunter and Mid North Coast to be wary of flash flooding as heavy rainfall lashes the coast. The SES said falls of up to 100 millimetres were recorded between 10pm and 3am and the Bureau of Meteorology has forecast more widespread falls over the next 24 hours. SES Assistant Commissioner Sean Kearns said catchments were already saturated and creeks and rivers were swelling rapidly. In the 24 hours to 5am the SES responded to almost 350 incidents, including eight flood rescues. More than 160 of those calls for help came from the NSW Northern Zone, where seven flood rescues were conducted after vehicles were driven into floodwater. "One of those drivers was conveyed to hospital with hypothermia like symptoms," Assistant Commissioner Kearns said. SES Mid North Coast Zone Deputy Commander Tony Day said the assets available to emergency responders included a Taree-based helicopter unit. "[Aerial crews] will be able to drop flood rescue-qualified people down into circumstances where we need that rapid deployment," he said. The helicopters will be located at Cessnock, Dungog, Taree and Maitland. "There are limitations to those aviation assets — sometimes due to weather conditions or night time they can't fly," Deputy Commander Day said. "That's why we back it up with ground crews in high-risk locations." Multiple sandbagging stations have been set up across the region, including at Raymond Terrace and Rutherford. Assistant Commissioner Kearns said wind gusts of 70-80 kilometres per hour were likely along the coast on Monday and Tuesday, along with hazardous surf conditions and five-metre waves from Sydney to Port Macquarie. "Coastal erosion is a risk, particularly for Central Coast properties already impacted by significant coastal erosion earlier this year," he said. "This includes at Wamberal Beach and The Entrance North." Minor to moderate flooding is likely in the Bellinger, Kalang, Nambucca, Hastings, Manning, Gloucester, Goulburn, Paterson, Williams and Hunter rivers, as well as in the Wollombi Brook, and flood watch alerts have been issued. The Macleay, Camden Haven and Myall rivers are expected to reach minor flood levels.
The Guardian
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Two Pints review – Roddy Doyle's boozy banter is a masterclass in comedy
While less dedicated or prolific writers were off boozing with their mates down the local, Roddy Doyle has spent almost a decade writing about it. From 2012-2019, he published three novels – Two Pints, Two More Pints, Two for the Road – in which two sixtysomething Irish men chatted over Guinness, their alcohol units far beyond those specified in the titles. Comprising only dialogue without even character names, the books seemed to call for dramatic form and, in 2017, Doyle premiered a play titled Two Pints in a Dublin pub, the speakers now distinguished as One and Two, tended by Raymond, an almost-silent barman. During lockdown, Doyle added six online duologues, The Zoom Pints, in which the men spoke while drinking alone at home. The collected craic packs a 432-page paperback – The Complete Two Pints. The theatrical banter is now revived in Coventry, and lightly updated to post-Covid Ireland. Summoned by bells from the Belgrade theatre bar, we double-take at a near replica – similar optics and crisp packets – though in reverse: Claire Winfield's set puts us behind the beer pumps, facing the drinkers. One (Anthony Brophy) is wiry, sarcastic, the drink a relief after visiting his dying father at a nearby hospital. Two (Sean Kearns), often the butt of jokes, is whimsical, quieter but also, we may come to feel, wiser. The conversations tend to fantasy, often involving women they like on television. They cast and review imaginary TV series, including Celebrity Car Park Attendant, in which Nigella Lawson is their favourite ticket vigilante. Another shared passion – football – informs a reverie about which famous players they would and wouldn't like to meet if there is an afterlife. In which conversation, the 'if' is the biggie, the laddish chat gradually overtaken by questions of life and death and the sins of the Irish Catholic church, made urgent by the condition of One's father. As proved by the easy adaptability of his novels to the screen – The Commitments, The Snapper, The Van – Doyle has an unusual facility with dialogue and gags, which the actors grace. When Brophy remembers the pub raising money 'to send the under-17 girls to Korea', Kearns, after a perfectly held pause, queries: 'Did they ever come back?' A reference to Ave Maria being sung at a funeral somehow moves via the Andrews Sisters to deep family memories. Some may resist the sweariness of the banter – the two words most likely to be bleeped on TV are as common as conjunctions – or its insistent masculinity, although Doyle and director Sara Joyce aren't necessarily endorsing this or expecting the audience to do so. But this is a masterclass in comedy writing and acting. At Belgrade theatre, Coventry, until 24 May
The Guardian
09-03-2025
- Climate
- The Guardian
Residents warned to head for high ground as flood waters rise in wake of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred
More than 230,000 households and businesses are without power and flash-flooding alerts have been issued for coastal areas in the aftermath of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred. The warnings follow heavy rain across south-east Queensland overnight and are clustered around the Brisbane, Gold Coast, Logan and Ipswich council areas. Residents have been told to move to higher ground away from the water or get ready to leave immediately if the threat worsens. 'If you are near flood waters get up as high as you can where you are,' Queensland police said on Monday morning. In northern NSW, where one person has died, rain is falling, roads remain closed and people are warned not to drive through high water. About 1,800 people have been isolated by the deluge and another 18,500 have been told they could be isolated. Across the north-east, 20,300 people have been told to evacuate. Over the weekend, some residents were allowed to return to their homes in places such as Lismore as conditions eased. 'We're not out of the woods just yet,' NSW SES Asst Com Sean Kearns said on Monday. 'The predicted risk of heavy rain to continue throughout Monday and possibly into Tuesday will only exacerbate this risk.' When Alfred made landfall in Queensland on Saturday, Malcolm Drysdale compared it to being 'flogged quietly by wet lettuce'. However, as he trudged around rising flood waters, Drysdale knew the weather system packed a mighty punch. But Drysdale is relatively unfazed by flooding after relocating to Rocklea, a suburb in Brisbane's south notorious for inundation. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email His family hails from an area outside Lismore, in NSW, which went through devastating flooding in 2022. 'My mum went to Richmond River high school, which no longer exists because the river took it to pieces in 2022,' Drysdale said. 'I am no stranger to flooding, nor is anyone in my family. People around here in Rocklea are the same.' Drysdale bunkered down on Saturday when Alfred crossed the coast. 'Wind-wise it was a bit of a non-event, a bit like being flogged quietly by wet lettuce,' he said. But winds picked up again the next night before more wild weather triggered widespread flooding. 'There's a few more trees down than I first thought,' Drysdale said as he waded through high water. 'It's always going to flood here … but it does get a bit hairy at times.' The prime minister was in Lismore on Monday. He flew into Brisbane on Sunday as flooding shut down a Queensland community and falling trees destroyed homes and cars. Residents at Hervey Bay north of Brisbane were told to stay inside under an emergency declaration after almost 250mm of rain fell in hours, triggering flash flooding. Parts of Gold Coast received an emergency warning late on Sunday, with communities told to 'take action now' and stay off the roads. About 30 rescues took place across Queensland's south-east and northern NSW on the weekend. But some were not so fortunate. The body of a 61-year-old man was found after his ute was swept into flood waters at Megan, near Dorrigo, NSW, on Friday. Meanwhile, 13 soldiers were injured after a truck rolled near Lismore on Saturday. One remained in a stable condition in hospital. The defence minister, Richard Marles, said the circumstances of the accident were being investigated.
