THE OFFICIAL cleanup from Cyclone Alfred has finished in our area, but the real work continues in so many places, especially off the mountain where flooding has affected houses and farms.
Residents, home owners, volunteers and anyone with a chainsaw attacked the fallen trees and the huge amount of debris even before the Energex crews rolled out in their mammoth trucks and heavy equipment.
Nearly everyone with a garden lost trees and branches and most street trees have had a severe pruning.
The road to Binna Burra was blocked in so many places by fallen trees and wire it took the Energex crews and their fleet of dozens of trucks, along with army personnel, to clear access and restore the many broken electrical wires.
In the iconic Lamington National Park, Landcare stalwarts Rob Newman, Barry Davies and Phil Curren walked the tracks to assess damages and any safety issues.
The National Parks web site now has full details of the state of all the tracks, but briefly, the Rainforest Loop is open.
The popular Coomera Falls track to the Lookout is open and the five kilometre Tullawallal walk to the ancient beech trees is open.
Beechmont, as did other mountain areas, lost power for up to 10 days.
Bearing in mind that Alfred was a Category Two, then One, then a tropical low, by the time it made landfall, it’s a sobering thought that even a low category cyclone can have reverberating consequences.
We were very well informed and prepared this time, with the cyclone hesitating for so long, teasing and threatening.
We may have to consider Alfred a warning of how it could be so much worse next time.
