Christmas 2023 to January 2024 disaster event
Three separate weather events occurred over Christmas and New Year on the Gold Coast, bringing destructive winds, extreme heavy rainfall, severe heatwave conditions and large hail. Considerable structural damage was seen across the city including fallen trees and powerlines, and damage to roofs and buildings, playgrounds, and roads.
A large number of Gold Coast residents and businesses remained without power and means of communication or road access due to fallen trees.
The Christmas 2023 to January 2024 storms left parts of our city seriously damaged and we are still recovering.
Recovery progress as at June 2025
23,610 trees planted with help from the community and environmental groups
50+ kilometres of fire management trails restored
63 natural areas being restored and maintained
77,153 truckloads of waste removed from 1,673 streets
$493,100 of new revenue injected into impacted businesses
$600,000 in financial relief to 23 community organisations
9 community wellbeing programs delivered
9 emergency services community and education events about preparing for disasters and recovery
4 Our Kinda Gold Coast events to support impacted residents
Restored all damaged parks, sporting, recreation and community infrastructure
10 school and education facilities
Recovery plan
We are delivering our recovery plan to help our community recover from the December 2023 to January 2024 disaster event.
To find out more, read the Recovery Plan(PDF, 406KB).
- Short-term recovery: 8 January – 3 March 2024
- Medium-term recovery: 4 March – 1 September 2024
- Long-term recovery: 2 September 2024 – 30 June 2025
Recovery actions
Find a summary of the recovery actions we're delivering below:
100%
Human and social recovery actions complete
Human and social
- Emergency shelter
- Essentials and financial assistance
- Multi-lingual relief information
- Psychological first aid and immediate support
- Reconnection of essential services
- Insurance claim support
- Support to repair damaged properties
- Vulnerable resident support
- Psychosocial and mental health awareness
- Assist priority community groups
- Strengthen social connections
- Support accommodation solutions
100%
Environment recovery actions complete
Environment
- Conduct water quality monitoring
- Collect data collection to quantify damage
- Manage green waste
- Provide environmental health advice
- Conduct pest control
- Clean up debris in waterways and beaches
- Implement resilient street replacement program for lost trees
- Provide support to conservation and wildlife groups
- Mitigate bushfire risk
- Clear and redress impacts to fire trails
- Redress erosion, stability and vegetation loss to waterways
- Implement canopy regeneration and forest restoration
100%
Infrastructure recovery actions complete
Infrastructure
- Repair power networks, water supply and telecommunications
- Remove debris and green waste
- Restore schools and education facilities
- Restore parks, sporting, recreation and community infrastructure
- Restore roads and landslips
- Implement sewage and water pump betterment programs
100%
Economic recovery actions complete
Economic
- Loan and grant fund assistance to impacted businesses
- Services to address business specific waste needs
- Promote 'Gold Coast is open for business'
- Long-term financial support measures for identified businesses
- Connect businesses with appropriate support to address emerging needs
- Encourage visitation, business and investment confidence
- Re-establish connections within business communities
95%
Resilience recovery actions complete
Resilience – building back better
The Gold Coast’s experience with severe weather events continues to change. We are learning from the impacts of the disaster events we’ve faced and are building back better.
Our recovery plan identifies key actions to help our city become more resilient to disasters and emergency events. These include:
- restoring public trust in emergency warnings and modelling capability
- identifying critical lessons from the last event and implement improvements
- supporting education and wellness activities to mitigate severe weather-related impacts
- identifying opportunities in climate adaptation and disaster readiness programs
- increasing infrastructure resilience to future severe wind hazards
- understanding critical infrastructure failure points and risk to households and businesses in vulnerable areas.
Insurance
The Insurance Council of Australia offers help in disasters. Visit the Insurance Council website for more information or support with your insurance after a disaster.
Storm damaged tree replanting 2026
- Since January 2024, 20,000 trees have been assessed for storm damage and 700 trees have been removed.
- Planning is underway for a tree planting program to replace damaged or fallen trees. Planting is scheduled for Autumn 2026.
- Securing high-quality tree stock can take up to 2 years, including sourcing nursery suppliers of quality trees that will be at mature growth for survival when planted.
- Our specialist team investigates planting locations to ensure the right tree is planted in the right site.
- Tree species selected for planting will be climate resilient species to the Gold Coast. This will ensure maximum potential to thrive without constant maintenance, once the initial 3 year aftercare period is complete.
- The use of climate resilient species contributes to our environment, providing food and habitat for local fauna.
- Our team will provide further information to impacted residents closer to the planting beginning.