Premier Chris Minns announced the closure of evacuation centres in Lismore at SCU and other parts of the Northern Rivers once evacuation orders have been lifted.

In Lismore, the final order is for North Lismore residents. This will be lifted as soon as flood waters recede enough and roads become passable. At 11am, the Wilsons River height at Lismore was 7.83m.

"These are not permanent solutions to that region's housing challenges," the Premier said, "As the premier, I am fully aware of the significant challenges for housing in the Northern Rivers, but evacuation centres are not permanent solutions. They just can't be.

"We don't have the resources, the staffing, the time, the allocation. In many cases, they are community centres or licensed premises or clubs or university facilities that need to be returned to those communities.

"So I want to apologise in advance, but we have to draw a very clear and understood line in relation to evacuation centres when the immediate threat of the storm is no longer felt by the community, we will not continue to operate them, and as the day wears on, we will be closing down evacuation centres once the SES believes that the threat to the local community has been lifted.

"Our efforts in relation to housing for that community are ongoing, but they're perennial challenges, they're very difficult. I want to reiterate and emphasise they're not going to be solved with the permanent evacuation centres, and I don't want people to be disappointed when the government announces that we're not continuing with their operation once the threat has been relieved inside those communities."

Premier Minns also mentioned about further grants being announced later today, hopefully including additional business support.

"We'll speak a bit later today about grants we're working with the Commonwealth Government and the Queensland Government about what we will roll out as it relates to emergency grants for affected communities, where, at the moment, looking at the assessment, the economic damage, the actual damage to those communities. The latest information I have is that we should be able to say something later today, but as soon as we've got a package to announce we'll do that as soon as we can."

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will be in Lismore this afternoon. He announced employees can apply for up to 13 weeks payment for those who are unable to get to work, who have lost their wage because of Cyclone Alfred from 2pm today.

People can check eligibility there on the MyGov website.

Essential Energy crews are continuing with the massive cleanup and restoration effort in the Northern Rivers as weather conditions remain challenging.

Helicopters are being used where possible to survey remote areas of the network to help identify the damage before plans can be made on how to safely access the locations.

As at 10:30am, around 10,000 homes and businesses remain without power across various communities from Tweed Heads south to Grafton and west to Armidale, with this number expected to slowly decrease throughout the day if the weather holds. Around 6,000 of these are in the Tweed Heads and Murwillumbah regions.

Some locations will require special equipment and climbing crews due to the nature of the terrain which won’t be able to proceed until the weather has cleared.

Unfortunately, a tree has come down on a powerline that has caused Mount Nardi to lose power again after teams restored it last night. Crews are back on the job this morning. Mount Nardi is home to several transmission towers for FM radio, digital television, fixed wireless broadband and some mobile phone services. 

Community hubs will be established later today and tomorrow to provide support to customers, including access to the internet and charging for mobile devices. Locations will be listed on electronic signboards that will be placed throughout impacted communities.