Ice Cube has found himself caught in the chaos of Cyclone Alfred, with the rap icon stranded at his Gold Coast hotel as the storm barrels toward Australia’s southeastern coast.

Schools are closed, public transport has stopped and desperate residents are getting around shortages of sandbags by buying sacks of potting mix as a region of eastern Australia is lashed by wind and rain from a rare approaching tropical cyclone.

Alfred is expected to become the first cyclone to cross the coast near Brisbane since Cyclone Zoe hit Gold Coast in 1974 and brought widespread flooding.