{"id":435320,"date":"2026-01-24T22:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T22:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/435320\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T22:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T22:44:14","slug":"tropical-cyclone-luana-brings-heavy-rain-and-destructive-winds-to-dampier-peninsula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/435320\/","title":{"rendered":"Tropical Cyclone Luana brings heavy rain and destructive winds to Dampier Peninsula"},"content":{"rendered":"

Residents are waking up to assess the damage from Tropical Cyclone Luana in Western Australia’s Kimberley region.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Luana originally hit the Dampier Peninsular, more than 2,000km north of Perth, about 2pm yesterday as a category two.<\/p>\n

The cyclone weakened to a category one as it continued south-east last night.<\/p>\n

Rain to continue<\/p>\n

Luana is expected to weaken below tropical cyclone strength this morning as it tracks further inland.<\/p>\n

However, heavy rainfall is expected to continue for Derby and southern parts of the Dampier Peninsula.<\/p>\n

The downpour is forecast to extend to areas further inland as the system moves south today.<\/p>\n

In Derby, power was set to be restored by 3:30am today after more than 350 Horizon customers experienced outages last night.<\/p>\n

\"trackmap_6am\"<\/p>\n

The cyclone was south of Derby by 2:48am today WST. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)<\/p>\n

‘Bit of an anticlimax’<\/p>\n

Beagle Bay CEO, Henry Augustine said Luana did not have nearly as much impact as ex-Tropical Cyclone Hayley, which crossed over the new year period.<\/p>\n

\"Indigenous<\/p>\n

Beagle Bay CEO Henry Augustine said Tropical Cyclone Luana’s impact was not as bad as expected. (Supplied: Pakam)<\/p>\n

“People were much more worried the second time round but it was a lot less stronger than Hayley,” Mr Augustine said.<\/p>\n

“I was expecting something like Hayley but it was a bit quieter, there was a bit of breeze and lots of rain.<\/p>\n

“I was sort of panicking but it was a bit of an anticlimax, I suppose.”<\/p>\n

The two cyclones in a row had been a big “wake-up call” for the community, according to Mr Augustine.<\/p>\n

He said a lot more people evacuated this time around, choosing to seek shelter elsewhere.<\/p>\n

“After going through a bit of a scare like that, you’ve got to be wary. You don’t know what’s happening. It’s unpredictable.”<\/p>\n

Howling winds<\/p>\n

On the western side of the Dampier Peninsula, residents reported wild weather with “howling winds”.<\/p>\n

Roma Peurtollano, a resident of the remote community of Chile Creek, sheltered at home with her dog, who was also frightened.<\/p>\n

“It was quite scary going through it all,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Chili Creek resident Roma Peurtollano struggled to keep her hair from her face in the “howling” winds from Luana. (Supplied: Roma Peurtollano)<\/p>\n

“It was howling, the force of the wind was just crazy.”<\/p>\n

Ms Peurtollano said she had not gone outside yet to see what kind of damage there was.<\/p>\n

She said Tropical Cyclone Luana felt stronger than Cyclone Hayley, which passed through in December.<\/p>\n

Monitor conditions<\/p>\n

A warning zone is in place for coastal areas in the south of King Sound, including Derby.<\/p>\n

A separate severe weather warning is in place for adjacent areas in the Kimberley.<\/p>\n

Emergency services are advising residents to monitor conditions, take care on roads, and not drive through any floodwaters.<\/p>\n

Roads closed<\/p>\n

Cape Leveque Road, the main road up the peninsula from Broome, remains closed from McGuigan Road.<\/p>\n

The Gibb River Road between Kimbolton Road and Pentecost River is also closed.<\/p>\n

Visit\u00a0Emergency WA<\/a>,\u00a0call DFES on 133 337, download the Emergency WA app, or listen to ABC Kimberley<\/a> to stay up to date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents are waking up to assess the damage from Tropical Cyclone Luana in Western Australia’s Kimberley region.\u00a0 Luana…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,61838,145729,222994,40359,17724,185103,18630,227326,5704,44,86,226945,45],"class_list":["post-435320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bom","tag-cyclone","tag-cyclone-luana","tag-dfes","tag-emergency-services","tag-evacuation-centre","tag-flooding","tag-jessica-lingard","tag-main-roads","tag-news","tag-perth-news","tag-tc-luana","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}