When Tropical Cyclone Alfred made landfall on Saturday 8 March 2025 as a category 1 cyclone, our people were prepared, ensuring vital blood supplies and pathology laboratories were available to communities in need.

The first trop­i­cal cyclone to cross the NSW and south-east Queens­land coast­line in 50 years brought destruc­tive winds and sig­nif­i­cant rain­fall and flood­ing. In NSW more than 80,000 homes and busi­ness­es lost pow­er from Tweed Heads to Grafton, with thou­sands evac­u­at­ed from their homes.

Despite the dis­rup­tion, NSW Health Pathology’s exten­sive net­work of lab­o­ra­to­ries, col­lec­tion cen­tres and couri­ers con­tin­ued their work, ensur­ing vital health ser­vices were able to func­tion through­out the emergency.

For Cain Byrnes, A/NSW State Health Pathol­o­gy Con­troller, care­ful prepa­ra­tions in the lead up were key.

“It was a mat­ter of bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er and lis­ten­ing to what each region need­ed,” he said.

“We set up an Inci­dent Man­age­ment Team well in advance to begin prepa­ra­tions, bring­ing togeth­er our lab man­agers, senior oper­a­tions rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Point of Care Test­ing, and a range of sup­port port­fo­lios to ensure we were best pre­pared for every sit­u­a­tion,” he said.

“We cre­at­ed the con­di­tions and gave local teams the sup­port they need­ed to man­age the response.

“I was so impressed with the way peo­ple across our labs worked togeth­er to ensure we had planned for any even­tu­al­i­ty – at Lis­more, Tweed, Grafton, Port Mac­quar­ie, Coffs Har­bour and Kempsey.

“In par­tic­u­lar, I’d like to thank our Grafton man­ag­er, Mered­ith Wig­gs. She had been in the job less than 2 weeks when she was asked to begin prepa­ra­tions for this event. She stepped up and led her team, ensur­ing ros­ters were filled and resources available.

“Her own accom­mo­da­tion was flood­ed dur­ing the storm, but she remained at work, sleep­ing at the hos­pi­tal overnight and con­tin­ued to serve her community.”

“It was not what I was expect­ing to face just two weeks into my new job,” said Mered­ith Wiggs.

“I was so grate­ful to be offered a place to sleep in the nurse’s accom­mo­da­tion at the hos­pi­tal, and to our Lis­more lab­o­ra­to­ry for sup­port­ing our small team here at Grafton.

“Our lab’s new chem­i­cal pathol­o­gy analy­sers were due to be installed just days after the cyclone hit and all that work and train­ing for staff had to be delayed. But we’re get­ting back on track now.”

Sev­er­al rooms were dam­aged by flood­ing at the new Tweed Heads lab­o­ra­to­ry, where staff also stayed for sev­er­al nights to ensure pathol­o­gy ser­vices could continue.

“I live across the bor­der in Queens­land and lost pow­er for more than a week at my own home – but the staff here were fan­tas­tic,” said lab man­ag­er Owen Van Eck.

“Every­one pulled togeth­er, stay­ing at the lab overnight and work­ing extend­ed hours to keep ser­vices run­ning for our community.”

Our Coffs Har­bour lab­o­ra­to­ry played a cru­cial role in the cyclone response, becom­ing a cen­tral hub to store essen­tial prod­ucts, such as blood, with Port Mac­quar­ie on standby.

NSW Health Pathology’s Emergency/Disaster Man­ag­er Scott Pearce said the response involved pool­ing resources to ensure each area had enough staff and supplies.

“Peo­ple were look­ing out for each oth­er and doing every­thing to assist neigh­bour­ing lab­o­ra­to­ries,” he said.

“Lis­more set up a ros­ter to send staff every day to Grafton which was in need of addi­tion­al support.”

In Kempsey, lab man­ag­er Ali­son Steven­son had the addi­tion­al respon­si­bil­i­ty of ensur­ing the cat­tle on her farm were safe from floodwaters.

On Sun­day she had to race home to res­cue some cat­tle strand­ed in ris­ing waters.

“We had moved most of our cat­tle the day before, but we got a call that the riv­er had over­topped the banks and would start to affect cat­tle in the pad­docks along the Macleay Val­ley Way,” Ali­son explained.

“We were asked to help as the own­er was iso­lat­ed at anoth­er prop­er­ty and we had to move them across the road. We were lucky the SES came along and helped stop traf­fic so we could get the cat­tle to safety.”

Lis­more lab man­ag­er, Chris Nicol says he was proud to be lead­ing a group of staff who were so focused on help­ing their colleagues.

“Lis­more has been through so much flood­ing in recent years, it was tough for many of the staff to go through it all again,” he said.

“Not only did they go above and beyond to ensure ser­vices con­tin­ued for their local com­mu­ni­ty, they also didn’t think twice when asked to go to Grafton to assist the lab­o­ra­to­ry there.”

Chris says he was par­tic­u­lar­ly relieved that his local cof­fee shop remained open on the week­end the cyclone hit.

“It was a huge boost to be able to get my morn­ing cof­fee despite all the chaos going on!”

Senior Oper­a­tions Man­ag­er for the North Coast Michael Crowther says he was proud to be lead­ing the North Coast team.

“The ded­i­ca­tion of the staff ensur­ing we were able to sup­port the com­mu­ni­ties we work and live in was out­stand­ing,” he said.

“Even when fac­ing chal­lenges with their own prop­er­ties at risk, every­one worked togeth­er to sup­port each oth­er and our ser­vice to patients.

“It was tru­ly won­der­ful to see the lev­el of coop­er­a­tion between the labs across the north coast.”

Cain Byrnes says there will be lessons to be learned from the response but over­all showed the organ­i­sa­tion work­ing at its best.

“At the heart of what we do at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy is look after peo­ple, and that was clear­ly evi­dent in our response to Cyclone Alfred.”

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