04 February, 2011

Update on the "monster storm"

On Wednesday night I mentioned the "monster storm" which was headed for the north of our home state that night. It hasn't been easy to find out how it all turned out. I think that is because the storm made landfall between the two major cities (Cairns and Townsville), which is where most of the journalists were probably holed up. Queensland is a vast state. Getting to the small communities which were affected hasn't been easy. A friend wrote a good summary on her blog here.

One measure of the monster is that communities hundreds of kilometres inland have now experienced their first ever cyclone. It just kept powering inland!

As far as I know there are no confirmed deaths, except that a couple of guys trying to shift their boats haven't been seen since Wednesday. It is a miracle, really, when you look at the photos. There was a whole lot of iron roofing flying around! I think possibly the people who were most at risk were crazy journalists trying to do reports while standing outside in the driving wind and rain or driving amongst debris, including felled electrical lines the next day.

I am thankful that it hasn't caused as much damage and loss of life as were predicted.

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