Yasi is a huge, dangerous cyclone

[journeyman Mick]

Seems like that storm in a teacup has passed, whatever will the Media Morons find to scare people about next? ................

Christopha,
while the media do turn most things into a three ring circus, this was no storm in a teacup, make no mistake. It was a combination of preparation, good fortune and world class building codes that minimised the destruction. Had the cyclone passed to the north of us as originally thought, I was fully expecting to lose the roof of my house. My place is built to the old W42 code, meaning it's good for 150km/h winds. It would probably withstand more than that, but how much more is anyone's guess. I moved our dining table against an exterior wall and was planning on sheltering under it if things got bad. It's quite sobering paring down your life to a handful of things you can throw in a grab bag: passport, wallet, cash, camera, laptop, socks and jocks. Looked around the house as I was doing it and mentally said goodbye to the lot.

We've just had the power come back on after 45 hours and the mobile network is up again after 24 hours. Got broadband, but no landline.

Mick

Mick

[m2c1Iw]

Good to hear you got through OK, somebody commented if a path had to be picked for the cyclone it would have been plotted the way it went missing the main centres.
Try telling that to the people around Tully.

[Ironwood]

Just got off the phone to my Mum in Cardwell. Her house survived, but a lot of stuff in the yard was damaged, a big tree filled yard now virtually bare except for a few sticks sticking up.
She said this morning she was out by the fence talking to a neighbour, when this guy pulled up, and asked if she wanted a hand.
He had with him a wheelbarrow, shovel, rakes etc. he worked all day helping clean up, now on dark he is having a bucket bath in the backyard before driving home to Cairns to his wife.
Mum said he wouldnt accept anything for his help, just took a few avocadoes that were on the ground.
Nigel from Cairns, whoever you are, thank you so much.

[WoodJunky]

That's Really Good News to hear that everyone got through relatively unscathed

[Dengue]

Finally back on the Internet temporarily courtesy of an extension lead over the fence from a neighbour's generator.

Yasi hit late Wed night, but the power was off by 9pm that night, and is still not back on.

It was a very wild night on Wed night and Thurs morning, loud roaring noise of the continuous gale and violent, explosive wind gusts that that hit constantly for 6 hours. I was sure they were going to tear the roof off. Only about 4am did it start to ease off in the intensity. We got about 1/2 hr sleep all night. The winds never abated until about 6pm Thursday, so it had a very long tail on it, but without too much rain. Still not safe to go out in it all day Thursday.

Our street was littered with huge trees across the road and in the power lines, so we weren't going anywhere even if we wanted to. The neigbourhood came out and cut up the big ones so cars could carefully drive through, and the local Council came today with heavy equipment and pushed them all up on the footpath, clearing the roads.

The damage at our house is the loss of one of the whirlybird vents on the top of the roof line, leaving a 300 mm diameter hole which took in a fair bit of water. Plumber son came out yesterday and covered it up, in the wind and rain.

We had water damage to two bedrooms, both with SE facing walls, the direction the cyclone rains and winds came from. Our new timber T&G bamboo floor in the main bedroom is ruined, as is the carpet in the 2nd bedroom, totally saturated, but we are not sure how the water got in. Mind you, it was blowing horizontally, and windows and single brick walls are not designed for that. We alos lost one of the gates on our double gates - just blew it off the hinges.

We have to throw out all our food in the fridge and deep freeze, because we have no electricity. I went looking for some ice at 6.30am this morning, and there were about 200 people at the iceworks at 7am when they opened. Fortunately I was toward the head of the queue.

The funny part was the local mini mart. I went for a quick drive after I returned with the ice to see some of the damage, and to collect a newspaper at the local store. At the store there were all these people hanging about outside, and inside it was full too, but nothing was happening. They all looked so sombre, no one was talking - like the living dead. I asked the guy behind the counter, and he told me they were all waiting for the delivery of cigarettes - the store had run out the previous day

There are no traffic lights out our way, and crossing the big intersections is a dangerous experience. I had one near miss on the way to collect the ice.

So, we are safe and well, have lodged and insurance claim, and just wish the power would be restored so we can use the overhead fans to get some sleep - it is so very hot and humid here.

Would be interesting to learn the intensity of the winds here... I think we got off fairly lightly - not much structural damage, but lots of trees uprooted due to the very wet ground, and or course the brittle gum trees breaking off - they should be banned in the tropics.

Just found the BoM data - at 1.30am on Thurs morning, the average 1/2 hr wind speed was 106km/hr, with gusts of 135 km/hr measured. Could have been worse., much worse This is in the "destructive winds" category, as predicted by the BoM. Fortunately, the storm surge did not reach the predicted 6m levels, as it slowed down as it got near the coast, and arrived closer to low tide than high tide here in Townsville

Another thing is that being to the south of the eye, Townsville, Ingham and Cardwell copped it a lot worse than Cairns from the winds coming in directly from the SE for the next 17 hours. I bet the citizens of Cairns breathed a huge sigh of relief, as at one stage they were right in the path of the Cat 5 cyclone.

Tried to change our flights booked to Sydney next Thurs with JetStar, explaining the damage we experienced and need to fix it over the next week or so. They wanted $250 to change one flight - they could easily re-book for $700, the going rate at the moment up here as they are in high demand. Mongrels!! So will probably check in online and then give the flight a miss. Would be mischievous to put luggage on board and then not board

you can see the photo galleries of damage at http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/

[specialist]

JillB, That looks really bad, I'm glad youre good. The trees really took a pounding, the ground being so wet probably didn't help.

Hope the insurance comes through for your house.

Robert

[Dengue]

Survived another night without power - hot , humid and sticky, no overhead fans or aircon, just like the good old days, with pillows and sheets saturated from sweat .

Now on day 4 without electricity, but no sign of Ergon Energy. We live about 500m from the big zone substation, and we know people fed from it who have power, so it is working OK.

The damage has been so widespread along the 600 km coastline affected by Yasi that thier staff would be very thinly spread.

Saw a ute from Energex ( Brisbane electricity uutility) in Townsville yesterday - suspect they have been flown in by the Army & RAAF transporters

we are off to queue up and get some more ice now

[Cliff Rogers]

Now we have the internet & mobile phones but no home phone.

The problems are all due to lack of power in some areas & the batteries are failing in the exchanges & mobile towers until somebody gets there with a gen set to recharge them.

Anyway, we are still here, still without power & only have patchy comms but we will survive.

Malanda & Millaa Millaa now have power but it is only in town, everybody around the outside of towns is still having to rely on gen sets.

Today we are going to try to find somewhere to do some washing as our machine won’t run on the small gen set we have.

We need to run a pressure pump as well for the water & every time it cuts in, the computer in the machine resets.

We also still have several hours work picking up branches around the property left to do.

We have cleaned up around the house & garden, it is just the stuff further out the needs to be cleaned up so were can get a mower/slasher through to control the paddock grass.

We spent a day in Tully yesterday (Saturday). We took a load of donated ply & a big tarp, also donated, & a load of tools & work gear & went down to help.

Spent the day patching windows, fixing window hinges & locks, pulling up & dragging wet smelly carpet, picking up building debri & cutting up tress.

I have never seen so many helicopters in one place on one day.

The Black Hawks were bringing troops to help & at least one of the smaller helicopters was accessing power line damage but most of them were just gouls & pollies filming & gawking at the mess.

Tully is a mess.

As we drove into town in the morning there was a bus load of SES volunteers arriving & at about 3pm a whole convoy of Army troops arrived from Townsville.

They have started to clean up the town.

[BobL]

Thanks for the detailed word pics and photos. Somehow coming from people one sort of knows it makes it more real.

The aftermath sounds pretty bad, especially not getting any sleep because of the heat and humidity, let alone having to do a massive clean up, so my heart goes out to you guys.

Seeing all those trees makes my CS trigger finger real itchy but realise that part is relatively trivial when you have no power or sewage and in some case no roads..

I don't like to be critical of anyone affected at this stage in proceedings but have to wonder about some people. Was watching some TV about the damage and there was a near new house built within 10's of m of a beach with full wall height glass windows and doors on a second floor blown in and heaps of water damage. Great views but I'm surprised that sort of construction is permitted? In my part of OZ that's about the same as building a weatherboard house in dense bush.

[Ironwood]

Spoke with a mate of mine who lives at 5 Mile Creek, he waited out Yasi at his neighours house, the next day took 7 hours to cut his way back to his own place.
He counted 83 trees down just in his house yard. Trees smashed one of his sheds and one of his old Ford Falcons. The house was still OK but wet through.

[journeyman Mick]

We have power, internet (most of the time) and mobile service (patchy and breaks up easily). Were only without power for 45 hours so that was pretty good. Have a small inverter genset that kept the fridges and freezer ticking over and lights at night. I have a 12v booster pump wired off a battery permanently plumbed in parallel to the main pump so I always have water. Very little damage around here, even to the trees. We lost the back fence to our rental property in Redlynch and I'm awaiting to see if that and the tree clear up is covered by insurance.

I worry that a lot of people around Cairns will now think that a Cat 5 is nothing to worry about. There were a lot of people worried about the possible storm surge though, who raced up the hill to Kuranda at the last minute, most without any food. They were all very irate, rude and aggressive to local businesses when told there was no eftpos, ATMs, fuel (ran out Tuesday arvo), ice, bread or newspapers and that the road back down the hill would not open for the rest of the day in Thursday.

Had one woman who lobbed up on a mate's doorstep who I got housed in an (un)official evac centre. It was officially designated as one but there was no coordinater so was not supposed to open. It was anyway thanks to miscommunications. Anyway, this woman had raced up the hill atg the laast minute taking her two kids, dog, 2 cats, 2 pet rats and her two Rwandan refugee neighbours. She had no food and barely enough fuel to get to the local servo which had no fuel anyway until lunchtime Friday. If we do get a Cat 5 hit a major population centre then natural selection will get a big kick along.

Mick

[AlexN]

From Ergon Energy's twittter feed a few minutes ago:

"More than 2000 people across Qld are actively working on Ergon Energy’s response to #TCYasi"

Apparently there's quite a few of them who were working on the Brisbane flood repairs as well, so they will be well-practised :).

Another tweet (Townsville City Council) is warning that the Townsville water supply is "still considered fragile".

Great to hear that Mick, Cliff and Jill are relatively OK - we're thinking of you down here in the relative safety of Sydney.

All the very best,
Alex.

[Spanner69]

all well for me now in townsville..... I finally have power but am still cleaning up the yard.

I sent some photos to Amos who kindlky posted them here:

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f69/ca...nner69-130970/

Cheers.

Spanner69

[BobR]

Jill, did that caravan in photo 2 survive the event, or arrive after. Very lucky if it went through the ordeal. Pleased to hear that you are making out - for the want of a better phrase..

[TTIT]

................Tried to change our flights booked to Sydney next Thurs with JetStar, explaining the damage we experienced and need to fix it over the next week or so. They wanted $250 to change one flight - they could easily re-book for $700, the going rate at the moment up here as they are in high demand. Mongrels!! So will probably check in online and then give the flight a miss. Would be mischievous to put luggage on board and then not board ....

What makes it worse was that I heard Bligh spruking that anyone seen to be gouging on the misfortunes of Queenslanders would be dealt with accordingly Apparently that means ignoring the airlines response to peoples plights. Heard on the ABC local radio that in the lead-up to Yasi, the cheapest Qantas flights out of Cairns were over $1000 and Virgin over $700 - cripes Anna!, if that ain't gouging, what the hell is???