Western Australia Recovers from Cyclone Narelle

Major gas infrastructure hit by outages as weather system continues south-east

Zac Saber, a local from Exmouth, a coastal town in Western Australia, described the intense winds and rain that battered the area as Cyclone Narelle made landfall. "The windows looked like they were going to pop, there were crazy sounds coming from the door and roof," he said. "We had to find buckets… rain was coming through at a full-on horizontal direction, underneath windowsills."

Exmouth bore the brunt of the storm, with winds exceeding 250km/h causing widespread flooding and tearing roofs from buildings. In a dramatic scene, 50 people were forced to flee the town's primary evacuation centre after the building itself sustained wind damage. By Saturday morning, as the storm was downgraded to a tropical low, Saber began hearing community reports of the destruction. "I've heard of people losing roofs, and even a report of a dinghy in a living room," he said.

Despite the damage, Saber noted that his facility had escaped major structural damage, although there was some water. "No one has had a dry run," he said. "Some businesses were smashed hard, the power's still off, apparently the IGA is in a bad way and the Ampol fuel station is damaged." The system continued to lose intensity as it swept south-east, bringing gusts of up to 100km/h, heavy rainfall, and flash flood warnings for the wheatbelt region and Perth.

The cyclone's impact extended to the state's energy infrastructure, with four major gas projects experiencing outages. Woodside confirmed a "production interruption" at its Karratha gas plant, the onshore processing hub for the North West Shelf project. Chevron's Gorgon facility on Barrow Island also experienced an outage on Thursday afternoon after one of its three LNG production trains was affected.

The Bureau of Meteorology confirmed on Saturday morning that the system had a "very low" chance of redeveloping, but warned that the danger was not over for inland and southern districts. Despite Narelle being downgraded, a "really powerful weather system" would continue to lash central and southern WA through Saturday night, said Angus Hines, a senior meteorologist at the bureau.

Emergency warnings were downgraded across the state by late Saturday morning. Isolated watch and act warnings remained in place for parts of Perth, the midwest, and Gascoyne and west of Onslow to Coral Bay. Locals were warned that a possible threat remained to lives and homes, and were told to stay away from damaged buildings.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, praised the efforts of emergency workers on Saturday and said the federal government "stands ready to assist" with the recovery.