Cyclone Yasi

There is a massive - the largest recorded in Queensland's history - cyclone headed towards North Queensland.

I just can't even imagine the fear and dread that people in its path must be feeling.

It's a Category 5 cyclone, and it goes without saying there will be property damage.

In February 1999, I was a journalist in Port Douglas when Cyclone Rona hit the Douglas Shire - about 100 kilometres north of Cairns.

Cyclone Rona was a Category 3 cyclone which has now pretty much been forgotten in the folklore of Queensland cyclones.

There wasn't much property damage, but there was a lot of tropical fruit crop damage and destruction to the Daintree Rainforest.

But I can remember the torrential rain; the howling wind; the high-pitched screaming of the Cyclone as it approached; the silence and stillness as its eye passed over; and then the wind and rain and screaming noise again.

I do remember getting under the kitchen table with Noodle thinking the house would blow away.

And that was a lesser-Category 3 cyclone. It had wind gusts of up to180kph and its eye was about 30km wide and the storm surge hit at low tide. Thank goodness.

I can remember travelling with the Douglas Shire Councillors to view the post-Cyclone damage to areas of the Daintree Rainforest at Cape Tribulation ... thick, virgin, rainforest had been flattened, as if a massive chainsaw has been swept through the forest cutting trees in half.  

Trees had been stripped of their leaves and snapped like twigs.

 

Cyclone Yasi is a Category 5 cyclone with possible wind gusts of up to 320kms an hour. Its eye is said to be up to 100kms wide, and it's hitting the coast line at about the same time as the high tide.

I'm very scared for what faces the people in Far North Queensland during the next 24 hours.