CANBERRA (AP) — Two powerful cyclones are blowing towards Australia’s sparsely populated north where around 2,000 people have been evacuated from the east coast of the Northern Territory ahead of strong winds, mountainous waves and flooding rain.
Cyclones are frequent in Australia’s tropical north and rarely claim lives. But two such large storms as Cyclones Trevor and Veronica crossing land on the same weekend is rare.
Trevor is expected to cross the east shore of the Northern Territory on Saturday morning as a Category 4 storm. It had sustained winds of 130 kilometres per hour (kph) with gusts to 185 kph yesterday afternoon. Gusts of 275 kph are expected around the eye when the cyclone makes landfall, Bureau of Meteorology manager Todd Smith said yesterday.
The Northern Territory communities nearest the expected landfall were evacuated on Thursday, most of the 2,000 or so residents going by road or defence cargo planes to the provincial capital, Darwin. Many also went to the inland city of Katherine.
Veronica is also expected to be a Category 4 when it crosses the coast of Western Australia state over Sunday night. Its sustained winds were 175 kph around midday yesterday.
A Category 4 severe tropical cyclone is roughly similar to a Category 2 or 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale used in the United States (US).
The last families left Borroloola by noon yesterday as they headed inland.
Speaking by phone from her family’s car as they drove inland, Christine Sauer said only the local police and utilities workers remained in the community of about 900 people.
“They’re about to switch off the power and water and they’re leaving too,” she said. “You’re not going to sit there for a Category 4 cyclone.”
Sauer and her family, who run the town’s store and gas station, plan to sit the storm out at a friend’s cattle station.
