Paul Syvret

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Paul Syvret |Andrew Stafford |Lucy Clark |Royce Kurmelovs

‘Sleep was not much of an option’At 9am it’s still gusting like a bastard in our corner of Surfers Paradise. The street is still OK, but there’s a fair bit of debris, and branches are still coming down during the more violent squalls. Quite deceptive really: one minute you think things have died down, and next minute another mini gale howls through. We seemed to get the full force of it in the early hours of this morning. Sleep was not much of an option.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Susan Chenery |Paul Syvret |Ben Smee |Lucy Clark |Royce Kurmelovs |Andrew Stafford

‘Can you ever be ready for a force of nature like this?’From my house I can normally see the great heft of Wollumbin/Mt Warning, which hovers over the region. Now it is gone, lost in rain and cloud. The town is deserted. When the wind is at its most ferocious, the trees in my garden are bent backwards. There is a silence where normally there would be birdsong. I have done everything I can to be ready for Cyclone Alfred, but can you ever be ready for a force of nature like this?