Holiday park smashed, crane snapped as freak storm hits coast

Holidaying families woke up in emergency accommodation on Boxing Day after a Gold Coast tourist park was evacuated in a short-lived but intense storm.

The microburst storm snapped a crane and cut power to thousands of homes just after 3pm on Thursday as it hit Southport, on the northern Gold Coast.

Energex said more than 15 power lines were downed, and a crane was snapped in half along Marine Parade– smashing into an adjacent apartment building.

The destructive winds forced holidaymakers to evacuate Broadwater Tourist Park, where boats, campervans, and tents were battered and pushed across the fully booked campground.

Guests were taken to emergency accommodation overnight.

Police declared an exclusion zone around Southport, encompassing several blocks between the Gold Coast Highway and beach, from Loders Creek to the Broadwater, including the damaged crane and parts of the park.

On Friday morning, the park said no guests had been allowed to return to the campground, but said any arriving on Boxing Day would still be able to check in.

“This was something that resembled worse than anything we saw during ex-tropical cyclone Alfred,” the park said on Facebook.

“With over 230 sites occupied, most guests appear to have sustained damage of some sort to marquees awnings.

“We are more than thankful to report no serious injuries, some worse for wear trying to secure and hold what they could in the midst of this.”

Senior meteorologist Harry Clark said the cell rapidly developed and remained over Southport before petering out, although gusts up to 83 km/h were recorded at the weather bureau’s Seaway station, two suburbs away.

“It just goes to show, even though we had a weather station fairly close by, no doubt there were stronger winds over those worst affected areas than what we reported even just a kilometre or two away,” Clark said.

On Friday morning, Queensland Police said the emergency zone remained in effect, while officers continued investigating any safety hazards on the ground.

Residents in homes nearby reported flash flooding, although Clark said the region only received between 15 and 20 millimetres of rain.

“Gympie had a fairly slow moving, very heavy thunderstorm over it yesterday evening. They picked up around 81 millimetres of rain in Gympie, and most of that fell in around an hour or so,” Clark said.

“Brisbane did get around 15 to 20 millimetres in places, as well with some thunderstorms that moved through the afternoon.”

Across the Brisbane and Gold Coast region almost 6000 homes lost power, about 3800 of which were within Southport.

An Energex spokesperson said standby crews were called in alongside additional backups, and the last home in Southport had power restored about 4am.

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