Key events
The road to Trish’s Queensland farm was blown up for a coalmine – now flood waters have left her ‘stuck in a hole’
Cattlewoman Trish Goodwin should be celebrating.
Last Friday, her parched property off the Capricorn Highway near the tiny town of Bluff in the central highlands of Queensland received “very good soaking rain” – nearly 200mm would fall in a few days.
It was proper wet season rain. And we needed it. We needed it badly.
Instead, Goodwin finds herself “stuck in a hole”, stranded and alone in the humble tin and timber home in which she was raised, carefully rationing her instant coffee and milk – worried her health could give out again, that she should need an ambulance.
For if the 62-year-old does require urgent medical attention, she says, paramedics would need a helicopter to pick her up.
Goodwin attributes her predicament to a coalmine mothballed for the second time in late 2023, whose current owner, Bowen Coking Coal, went into receivership in July. Because between Goodwin and the highway, where a crushed blue metal road once ran through pastured land and timber, there is now a blasted and gaping hole in the Earth: an open cut mine called Bluff.
For more on this story, read the full report from Guardian Australia’s Joe Hinchliffe:
More than 1,400 calls to emergency services amid NSW storms, authorities say
The NSW State Emergency Service has received more than 1,400 calls for help and 20 requests for flood rescues after Sydney was lashed with torrential rain.
SES assistant commissioner Sonya Alstonspeaking to ABC News, says the main areas affected by flash flooding and storm-related incidents are the Illawarra, Sydney and Hunter areas.
We did have an evacuation at Narrabeen overnight due to the rapid rising waters there and the localised heavy rainfall, so that continues around that. Those particular areas with the weather also moving up north, we’ll see around north-eastern New South Wales experiencing some of that heavy winds, heavy rain and large wind gusts.
Residents of the area are advised to monitor the BoM app and the Hazards Near Me app as there are warnings in place. They are also warned not to enter flood waters.
Alston says similar conditions are expected throughout Saturday and into early next week as the storm system heads north.
We’re hoping to see a little bit of relief for the Illawarra area today. But still in that Sydney northern area. So again urging everyone to keep safe, keep inside if you can.
One dead after tree branch falls on car in Illawarra region
A woman died during the storms on Saturday afternoon when a tree branch fell on her car on Macquarie Pass, south of Wollongong.
NSW police said:
The woman was a driver in the vehicle when the incident happened.
A man in the front seat passenger suffered minor injuries, and two passengers in the rear seats were not physically harmed.
Evacuation order on Sydney’s northern beaches as Australia’s east coast smashed by stormy weather
Australia’s east coast is being smashed by summer storms as residents are told to evacuate.
An emergency warning was in place for Sydney’s northern beaches on Sunday morning, with residents at Narrabeen Lagoon and surrounds told to leave.
More than a dozen people have been rescued across Sydney, with cars submerged and homes flooded.
At Great Mackerel beach, in the northern beaches, a landslide damaged numerous homes with at least one woman injured.
The storm system also claimed the life of a woman on Saturday after a tree branch fell on her car and State Emergency Service crews received more than 800 calls for help after heavy rain lashed New South Wales.
Senior meteorologist Edward Townsend-Medlock said more heavy rainfall was expected from Sydney’s northern suburbs through to the Hunter coast on Sunday morning.
Within that concentrated area is where you could get some of those more severe thunderstorm cells that we saw, for example, on the Central Coast.
For more on this story, read our full report:
Good morning
And welcome to another Sunday morning Guardian live blog.
Powerful storms have lashed Sydneywith some residents of the northern beaches told to evacuate. More than a dozen people have been rescued across the city, as a landslide injured a woman and damaged multiple homes.
A woman was killed in the storms on Saturday when a tree branch fell her car at Macquarie Pass and a man in the front passenger seat suffered minor injuries. The New South Wales SES recorded more than 800 calls for help.
I’m Royce Kurmelovs and I’ll be taking the blog through the day.
With that, let’s get started …
