Residents in Kalbarri are waking this morning feeling as if they have ‘dodged a bullet’.
Ex-TC Narelle, which a few days ago was on track to directly hit the coastal town, instead passed further inland and spared residents a repeat of the destruction caused by cyclone Seroja in 2021, where 70 per cent the town’s structures were damaged.
It’s rare for a cyclone to make it this far south along the WA coast, and Kalbarri and towns such as Geraldton, are not cyclone-prepared like places further north in the Pilbara and Kimberley regions.
Kalbarri residents were last night bracing for destructive winds and heavy rainfall, but this morning, one resident reported ‘sleeping like a baby’.
The Bureau of Meteorology reports the strongest wind gust felt in the town overnight was 79km/h, with 7.8mm of rain falling in the past 24 hours.
Power in the area remains on, and the cyclone risk has this morning been reduced to an advice alert, meaning residents are free to leave their homes.