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.

Millions of residents along Australia’s eastern coast are bracing for the arrival of a very slow-moving storm, the most southerly tropical cyclone to threaten the region in more than 50 years.

Early wind and rain from a rare tropical cyclone began lashing parts of eastern Australia on Thursday. Tropical Cyclone Alfred is forecast to cross the Queensland state coast somewhere between the Sunshine Coast region and the city of Gold Coast to the south early on Saturday,

Residents are stacking sandbags to protect low-lying properties ahead of a tropical cyclone that is forecast to become the first in 51 years to hit the Australian east coast near Brisbane, the nation’s third-most populous city.