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History - Australia's worst storm surges

The whole of coastal Queensland is at risk of cyclones and storm surge, with some areas more vulnerable than others.

Destructive storm surges don't happen very often, but as our coastal population grows the risk increases.

In 1899 at Bathurst (near Cape York) a massive storm surge killed over 300 people.

In 1918 a storm surge inundated Mackay, drowning 13 people and damaging or destroying as many as 1000 homes.

Above: Storm surge and cyclones whipping up normally calm water in Cairns (photo courtesy of Cairns Post).

Since then we've been lucky. There have been a number of close calls such as Cyclone Althea in 1971 which produced a 2.8 metre storm surge in Townsville. Thankfully it crossed the coast near low tide so there was only minor flooding. If Althea had struck just five hours later on the high tide a tragedy could have occurred.