More than 1,000 retirement villages, land lease communities and residential aged care homes in southeast Queensland and northern NSW are working flat out to ensure they are fully ready for the landfall of Tropical Cyclone Alfred.
Australia's largest Not For Profit operator Bolton Clarke has 29 aged care homes, 17 retirement villages and more than 2,300 home and community support clients in the regions expected to be hit by the Category 2 cyclone when it makes landfall on Friday morning. Keyton and Palm Lake Group told The Weekly SOURCE earlier today they were on cyclone preparation.
St Vincent's Care Queensland, which has 12 aged care facilities in the affected area, has agreed to safely care for 11 Indigenous elders evacuated from North Stradbroke Island, off the coast of Brisbane. The Nareeba Moopi Moopi organisation, which runs an aged care facility at Dunwich on North Stradbroke Island, is expected to be directly in the firing line of the cyclone.
Leading retirement village operator Keyton said it had been making emergency preparations in their Queensland villages with resident committees and village volunteers since last week.
"This week we have been communicating regularly and directly with residents and staff, emphasising they should follow the advice from authorised sources from the Queensland Government (www.disaster.qld.gov.au) and the BOM and follow updates in the media, such as the ABC’s emergency disaster channels."
We have a cross-functional team monitoring the situation and coordinating our communications in relation to TC Alfred’s and its potential impacts. Our corporate office in Buderim will be closed from COB today with staff working online if they can. Villages will have a skeleton staff onsite with appropriate skills and experience. All staff have rescheduled travel plans to and from areas likely to be impacted."
Alfred, which was sitting 430km east of Brisbane this morning, is expected to make landfall near the Queensland capital at about 2am on Friday and is forecast to bring up to 800mm of rain over four days in parts of northeast NSW.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said Cyclone Alfred was likely to make landfall about an hour after high tide at 1am on Friday, sparking concerns that people living on the coast or near beaches and rivers could face a tide up to half a metre higher than normal.
Bolton Clarke Chief Executive Officer Stephen Muggleton said all Bolton Clarke residential home leadership teams in the southern Queensland and northern New South Wales areas at risk have reviewed their business continuity plans for cyclone management and emergency food and water stocks have been sourced, while maintenance teams are checking all homes have access to fully fuelled generators.
Surge staff lists and rosters have also been drawn up and arrangements have been made for staff to stay overnight if unable to travel home.
Similar steps are being taken by all operators with facilities in the region.
15 suburbs have marked as “high risk” and include:
- Brighton (32 retirement living listings on villages.com.au and 35 aged care listings on agedcare101),
- Windsor (40 listings on villages.com.au and 45 listings on agedcare101),
- Ashgrove (30 listings on villages.com.au and 43 listings on agedcare101),
- Morningside (38 listings on villages.com.au and 42 listings on agedcare101),
- Rocklea (35 listings on villages.com.au and 44 listings on agedcare101),
- Coopers Plains (38 listings on villages.com.au and 39 listings on agedcare101),
- Carina (37 listings on villages.com.au and 38 listings on agedcare101,
- Sandgate (25 listings on villages.com.au and 27 listings on agedcare101),
- Hemmant (25 listings on villages.com.au and 26 listings on agedcare101),
- Lota (22 listings on villages.com.au and 15 listings on agedcare101,
- Tingalpa (33 listings on villages.com.au and 32 listings on agedcare101),
- Indooroopilly (31 listings on villages.com.au and 42 listings on agedcare101),
- Albion (39 listings on villages.com.au and 46 listings on agedcare101),
- Bardon (33 listings on villages.com.au and 48 listings on agedcare101), and
- Wynnum West (21 listings on villages.com.au and 18 listings on agedcare101).