How lucky are the people of Cairns? Cyclone Yasi crossed the coast at around 12.30 am Queensland time and decided to bypass Cairns and head further south. Unfortunately the towns of Mission Beach, Tully and Cardwell bore the full force of the cyclone.
Apparently Cardwell has been wiped out. There is a lot of damage in Tully and Mission Beach and some in Innisfail. Cairns saw a few trees uprooted, some building damage but nothing like they were expecting. Even a baby (girl) was born in one of the evacuation centres.
The best news of all was that there were no serious injuries or deaths reported this morning. Tonight on the radio they are now reporting that 2 people are missing at Innisfail and as they have found they cannot get into Cardwell (only by helicopter), they are hoping that there will be no grisly finds there.
When you see some of the damage you wonder how on earth anyone survived if they were sheltering in the houses. A lot of the crops have been wiped out. Bananas and sugar cane will now be scarce, they say we could be paying up to $13/kilo for bananas.
I know when we went through Cyclone Tracy, initially we stayed put in our house. Once the roof peeled back like a sardine can and our linen press doors flew open and all the sheets and towels were sucked out I panicked and we left the house. We got into the car but only got out of our drive and onto the road when the car stalled due to the amount of water.
During the eye of the cyclone another car came along, he was trying to get his wife to the hospital as she had cut her foot, and we clambered into his car. It was already full with kids and adults but we squeezed in.
In the morning when everything had calmed down and we realised what we had been through, we went back to our house. We were thankful that we had made the decision to leave as we had no walls and no floorboards upstairs, and half a brick wall downstairs. I shudder now to think of what would have happened to us if we had stayed in the house.
What was left of our house back in 1974
From that mess there wasn't too much that was salvageable. Clothes that we found were covered in mud, Tony's glasses were found intact, but not his contact lenses. We had packed a small suitcase with our important papers and photos, but when we left the house we didn't take it with us. That case was nowhere to be seen.
From the Lens.........different time, different place, but still the same amount of damage
The main street in Tully
A residential street in Tully
photos courtesy of news.com.au
My husband was also in Cyclone Tracy as a seven year old kid, living with his parents and four siblings in Parap. They started by hiding under their beds when the louvre windows shattered and shards of glass were flying about, and the huddled in the central hallway when the roof blew off. Miraculously, that was all the damage that was done and the house is still standing today.
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