SYDNEY: A tropical storm barreled toward Australia’s remote Norfolk Island on Saturday, with forecasters warning its 2,000 residents to brace for “devastating winds” and deluges of rain.
Tropical Storm Gabriel is then expected to hit northern New Zealand, where a major clean-up operation is underway after devastating floods in late January.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said the storm could pack gusts of 155 kilometers per hour (96 mph) as it approached Norfolk Island, about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) northeast of Sydney. .
Norfolk Island Administrator Eric Hutchinson said the worst of the storm was expected Saturday evening, but strong winds had already caused some power outages.
“We’re expecting power outages, trees down, roofs down,” he told national broadcaster ABC.
The storm was downgraded to a Category Two Saturday morning, but Hutchinson said it remains a potentially dangerous situation.
“We have a few days left to prepare, so we will deal with recovery as needed,” he said.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said the storm would bring “damaging winds, heavy rain, unusually high waves and damaging surf” to Norfolk Island, which suspended flights until it passed.
The storm will then approach New Zealand on Sunday evening, bringing “significant heavy rain” to the North Island, according to the country’s Met Service.
Emergency shelters are already being set up in Auckland, a city of 1.6 million people still under a state of emergency after severe flooding two weeks ago.
Now known as a beautiful tourist destination, Norfolk Island was once a notoriously brutal British colony known as the “Hell of the Pacific”.
It was abandoned by the mid-1850s but later repopulated by the descendants of the British sailors who staged the infamous mutiny on HMS Bounty in 1789.