Just Wanted an Extra-Hot coffee’: What ex-TC Alfred Taught me About Home Resilience and Vulnerable Households
The government and emergency services worked tirelessly, delivering timely alerts and constant warnings to the South-East Queensland communities before Tropical Cyclone Alfred made landfall. We dutifully followed their advice, even accepting the unsolicited wisdom of that one North Queensland friend who swears by duct-taping windows. In a peak Cyclone Alfred moment, we camped under the stairs like Australian Harry Potters. But when the power went out on Friday night, so too did my dreams of an extra-hot coffee.
Initially, caffeine withdrawal felt like the gravest injustice. However, the next four days revealed a deeper truth – disasters instantly strip away comfort, exposing how unprepared we truly are when essentials vanish.
Homes Without Boiled Water - A True Horror Story
The morning after our sleepless night, I stumbled into the kitchen desperate for caffeine, only to remember – no power meant no boiling water. My head throbbed as I started at the tap contemplating if drinking lukewarm legionella bacteria-infested water would kill me faster than another minute without coffee.
Spoiler: I didn’t drink it – not due to newfound resilience but because being one of over 300,000 properties without power, even the hot tap runs cold. Nature’s cruel joke.
As I tuned into AM/FM radio – shockingly still the best information source in 2025 – the presenter warned some regions to boil water before drinking due to possible contamination. Yet without a generator, boiling water became an impossible luxury.
The loss of power didn’t just mean no lights. It meant no safe water for sanitising wounds, preparing baby formula, or even basic hydration amidst the panic-buying of bottled water. Hot water isn’t just a comfort—it can threaten the survival of households cut off by weather disaster without a backup plan.
The Stone Age: When Wi-Fi Collapses, so Does our Safety
The radio was our only source of real-time emergency alerts after telecommunications failed. Yet ironically, every broadcast ended with, ‘Visit this website or download that app for more information.’
What website? What app? What number? WE HAD NO INTERNET.
By Sunday evening, my phone and battery packs were dead. No problem, I thought – I’d just transfer my SIM card to my old phone. My backup plan failed spectacularly as Apple required Wi-Fi just to set it up. My caffeine-low brain pictured flood waters rising, trees falling and your phone bricks itself because it demands Wi-Fi before letting you make a call.
The digital solutions we rely on daily become useless when the infrastructure supporting them fails. Here’s a radical idea: why don’t tech companies enable phones to be set up without internet access? Or why don’t mobile carriers add SOS emergency weather alongside SOS emergency call features?
For rough sleepers and low-income households who rely on free public Wi-Fi, the digital blackout is even harsher. When libraries and community centers close, does the government have plans to keep them connected or are they simply left to fend for themselves?
Because when disaster strikes, staying connected shouldn’t require a miracle – or functioning Wi-Fi.
The Great Stove Divide: What It Means for Your Home and Disaster Preparedness
In my coffee-deprived haze, I realised something perplexing. My building had gas cylinders, yet there was no opportunity to enjoy hot showers. Turns out, the gas system still relied on electric ignition.
Meanwhile, my neighbours were blissfully unaffected, enjoying hot meals, hot showers and – infuriatingly – hot coffee. Why? Seven out of eight units in our complex had gas stoves. Mine didn’t.
This inconvenience becomes serious when considering vulnerable groups. My aunty, for example, suffers from cold urticaria – a condition causing severe swelling when exposed to cold water, affecting 6 in 10,000 people worldwide at any given time. For her and many others, a lack of hot water is more than an inconvenience; it’s a significant health risk.
My unit, proudly one step closer to net-zero emissions living with gas-free appliances, seemed fine – until the extreme weather hit. Once-in-50-years cyclones, hurricanes, and bushfires are increasingly frequent. But without adequate backup systems, a simple design choice inadvertently left me vulnerable during the cyclone.
Perhaps there’s a sweet spot between sustainability and resilience—a space where saving the planet doesn’t mean sacrificing basic comforts (like a hot cuppa) when crises hit.
Finding the Balance: Is Housing Affordability Worth the Increased Vulnerability?
Standing in my kitchen, craving coffee, I stared at my powerless stove—then noticed water seeping in. Another painful reminder: I had no contents (personal property) insurance.
On the radio, a family’s home was split by a fallen tree. They had insurance, but rebuilding would take over 15 months. It is common for premiums to spike after disasters, pushing coverage even further out of reach for many low-income families. Some policies don’t even fully cover natural disasters, leaving families to face both financial ruin and physical loss – especially those seeking affordable homes in regional and remote areas where extreme weather turns them into costly traps.
A home should provide security, not just shelter. Yet, for the 23% of Australian households without home or contents insurance, it’s a luxury, not a necessity – leaving them unprotected when disaster strikes.
True resilience isn’t just about rebuilding – it’s ensuring that everyone, insured or not, can survive without losing everything. Governments must prioritise disaster-proof housing, and insurers should provide fair, accessible coverage for low-income families.
Without real solutions, families face impossible choices: financial ruin or living in constant danger. We can’t all turn to GoFundMe every time extreme weather strikes.
The Invisible Crisis: When Disasters Hit the Already Vulnerable
Nothing exposes the forgotten victims of homelessness and vulnerability like a crisis.
On my failed coffee run, I passed a flooded park’s facilities where a young woman living in a van usually showered. Hopefully, I thought, she and others sleeping rough made it to emergency shelters.
The harsh reality is these shelters offer brief refuge, but they eventually shut down while the weather impact lingers. Returning to a soaked tent or damaged cars isn’t an option because of routine clearances of temporary sleeping shelters. When emergency support ends, so does the safety of the unhoused.
Back home, cuddling my pets, I thought of another impossible choice some residents of Queensland have to make: flee domestic violence and sleeping rough with their companion animals or staying home and being subjected to violence. Even if they choose the former, many shelters don’t accept pets, forcing them to choose between safety and their only source of emotional comfort.
My mind drifted to a recent plea from a terminally ill woman – she died not because relief was impossible, but because she was too far from care. For in-home care recipients and the elderly in remote areas, flooded roads and limited services stretch distance’s life-threatening challenges.
For some, a cyclone means stocking up. For others, it means nowhere to go. We must focus on protecting the vulnerable when disaster strikes.
The Final Thought From Coffee Deprivation: We Need to Think Bigger
Tropical Cyclone Alfred was meant to be a ‘once-in-50-years’ event, yet disasters like it are now regular visitors.
My caffeine crisis offered unexpected clarity: we are all weathering the same storm, but our experiences vary wildly. Some enjoyed hot showers and fresh coffee; others went days without basics. Neither is wrong – they just expose how disparate our levels of home,personal, and community resilience are in emergencies.
Being ready for climate disasters isn’t doomsday prepping – it’s actually smart planning when done right. Disaster resilience isn’t just surviving; it’s thriving through adversity. It’s staying connected when networks fail, protected when systems collapse, and prepared before panic sets in. It’s SOS weather alerts that reach everyone, homes built for more than mortgage or rental stress, communication that outlasts Wi-Fi outages and disaster plans that protect the vulnerable instead of leaving them behind. This isn’t fear—it’s foresight.
While life has resumed as if Cyclone Alfred happened long ago, Western and Southern Queenslanders now face heavy rainfall and floods expected to reach even Northern New South Wales. We can pretend progress has been made. But until the next disaster strikes, I’ll be upgrading my emergency kit with a battery-operated kettle – not just for hot coffee, but for safe drinking water, hygiene and my sanity.
Dr Johari Amar is a Lecturer in Property, Faculty of Society and Design, Bond University, Gold Coast Australia. She researches resilient built environments with a particular focus on housing, built heritage, commercial buildings and technology. Her work aligns with UN SDG 11: making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
