00:01Norell is expected to impact the east coast of the Top End as a severe tropical cyclone
00:07after re-intensifying in the Gulf.
00:09The immediate concern is for communities like those on Groot Island, places like Borralula
00:16and Numbulwa, although Numbulwa residents have been evacuated over the last couple of
00:21days on RAF Plains and taken to safety in Darwin.
00:25For those remaining people in East Arnhem Land communities, they've been told to hunker
00:30down to make their final preparations, especially if they're on the coast, to secure their properties
00:35and things like boats.
00:37Further inland, places like Nookka and Bulman, those communities are being told to watch
00:44the situation closely and to start preparing their kits as the cyclone gets closer to them.
00:50And then as the system tracks further inland into the Top End, as it reaches closer to
00:57places like Catherine, a major regional centre for the Northern Territory, it is expected to
01:03downgrade at that point to a tropical low, but it's still expected to bring potentially
01:08damaging wind and very, very heavy rain to an extremely saturated catchment.
01:12Keep in mind that Catherine has just been through a serious major flooding disaster just two weeks
01:19ago, where scores of homes and businesses were inundated and the river reached its highest
01:24level in almost 30 years.
01:27Now on that heavily sodden ground, people are bracing for a potential second flood.
01:33The Bureau of Meteorology is saying that the Catherine River could start to rise quite rapidly through
01:38the course of Sunday afternoon and evening and into Monday, they say it could once again
01:43cross the threshold that makes a major flood event, that's 17.5 metres.
01:48It remains to be seen whether it will reach the lofty heights that it did two weeks ago,
01:54where it was more than 19 metres, and that's where it really starts to inundate large parts
01:59of the town and the CBD.
02:02So people in Catherine will be keeping a close eye on the Bureau of Meteorology's predictions
02:08as they get better intelligence about exactly how much rain is going to fall in the Catherine
02:12catchment.
02:13Preparations are ongoing in Catherine.
02:16There's been a little bit more notice this time around just because of the nature of this
02:20system and its highly predictable track.
02:22So a sandbagging effort is in full swing.
02:25And the community is preparing itself to have sufficient food supplies, fuel supplies and
02:32a sophisticated field hospital has been transported to Catherine, which will be set up, that's courtesy
02:40of the National Trauma Response Group, a crack team of medical professionals who are well
02:46placed to be able to deliver disaster and emergency relief to the people of Catherine if this does
02:51indeed turn into another serious flood disaster.
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