Cyclone Larry : The Aftermath

2006-04-15T00:50:00.000+10:00

ONE MONTH ON : HUNDREDS STILL WITHOUT POWER

THOUSANDS OF HOMES STILL COVERED BY TARPS

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting : "Ergon Energy crews are attempting to reconnect about 200 homes and businesses today and over the weekend, despite having promised to have power restored by Easter.

"The supplier today said it had cost $30 million to reconnect power wiped from 135,000 of its customers during the devastating category-five cyclone on March 20.

"Most homes and businesses without electricity are in remote parts of the Atherton Tablelands, west of Innisfail.

PORTABLE HOMES FOR THOSE STILL TRYING TO FIND SOMEWHERE TO LIVE

Portable homes will be pieced together and trucked or trained into the Innisfail region for up to 50 families still without a place to live.

Recovery task force leader General Peter Cosgrove referred to the figure as "a handful of families" on ABC Radio.

The temporary homes will not have the amenities of a permanent dwelling, such as basic kitchens.

The rush is now on to complete rebuilding work within nine months, before the start of the next 'wet' season, when rains are at their heaviest and the area becomes prone once more to cyclones.

More than 10,000 tarps still cover damaged roofs. Broken windows in hundreds of homes are boarded up with plastic sheeting, sheets of plywood and corrugated iron.

2006-04-04T22:51:00.000+10:00

THE GOOD NEWS STARTS TO FLOW

MORE MONEY FOR JOBS AND TRAINING

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting : "Farmers and workers devastated by Cyclone Larry will receive a further $19 million under a new jobs and training package unveiled today.

"Cyclone Larry devastated about 12,500 hectares of prime agricultural land when it swept through far north Queensland two weeks ago, wiping out cane, banana and other tropical fruit and nut crops. It also left thousands of farm workers unemployed.

"Mr Beattie said the $18.56 million in new aid, which comes on top of more than $100 million in federal and state assistance already pledged, would help keep workers in the area until affected farms recovered."

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According to Beattie, the money will be used to help farmers hold onto the skilled labour that they are likely to see move on from the affected areas now the jobs are gone. Money will also go towards providing training for those not highly skilled, and also re-training. Which means some people who have lost their jobs may have to agree to training for new lines of work in order to get money from the new line of funds.

The Herald is touring a figure of "1000 displaced workers" who are expected to find new jobs helping to rebuild the damaged infrastructure.

2006-04-03T00:15:00.000+10:00

'MOET' MIRANDA APOLOGISES (SORT OF) FOR HER ABUSE OF THE 'LARRIED'

'Moet' Miranda Devine, the right wing columnist who referred to the suffering people of Innisfail as 'whingers' on the Sunday following the cyclone, and stirred up a hornet's nest of outrage, has apologised....well, she's sort of apologised in her latest column in the Sydney Sun Herald.

She quoted extensively from a few of the dozens of letters sent by angry and distressed people to the Townsville Bulletin, and included one or two of the hundreds of responses that landed in her e-mail inbox with a heavy thud.

She also quoted one of the funniest lines of all from the Townsvile Bulletin editorial the day after her original column appeared : "(Hardship in Sydney is) when the local bottle-o runs out of Moet or when the maid calls in sick and madam has to do the washing herself".

That's only true for a tiny slice of Sydneysiders, but it still cracks me up every time I read it.

'Moet' Miranda also managed to slip in a roundabout slur by claiming "Even as Sydney native General Peter Cosgrove heads the reconstruction of the cyclone-ravaged area, the story mined a rich streak of anti-Sydney sentiment in the tropics, judging by the emails."

As far as I could tell, the only anti-Sydney sentiment 'mined' was in response to Miranda's sickening slash at the cyclone survivors. Few of the responses were directed at Sydneysiders in general, they were almost all directed directly at 'Moet' Miranda herself. But she's not going to tell you that.

And apparently because 'Sydney native' General Peter Cosgrove was on his way to help out, everyone up North was immediately supposed to forget Miranda's outrageous slander.

She didn't just cop funny and slightly abusive e-mails, she also got the facts on the ground from volunteer fighters like Warren, who wrote : "What you were not privy to was the absolute selflessness of the residents of East Palmerston when our volunteers delivered tarps, ration packs, fresh fruit and water. Many refused aid because in this part of the country you don't accept charity.

"[They] would often scratch together the ingredients to supply home-made lamingtons . . . [or] appear from the darkness with all the beer they had and, somehow, a bag of ice."

And this from Shane, "I, like many other locals, have simply knuckled down, cleaned up, gotten back to work and used the experience as a character builder . . . Generally the spirit of co-operation and generosity has been exceptional."

"Glad to hear it" Miranda writes at the end of her column.

But the point will not be lost on the people of North Queensland, and the residents of Innisfail in particular.

People were scratching together lamingtons and sharing food and helping each other string up tarps and checking on elderly neighbours and delivering water and minding each other's kids and holding spots in the days long queues while the needy took a break from standing in the rain, and they did these things all the week long before Miranda wrote her despicable column.

The trouble is Miranda didn't bother to find out that all these good and kind and wonderful things were happening in the cyclone zone. She just glanced at the television, saw and heard what she wanted to see and hear and then slandered thousands of shocked and traumatised people with the misinformed catch-all of 'whingers'.

But the people of North Queensland will have to take what they can get from Miranda. They shouldn't expect a much needed Correction to any of the lies she spouted in her original column and they certainly should not be expecting any kind of proper apology.

It doesn't work like that in Sydney.

Go here and here to read our original coverage and some of the best 'Dear Ms Moet' letters.

Go here to read 'Moet' Miranda's latest column.

Go here to read the original 'whingers' spew.

UPDATE : 'MOET' MIRANDA SENDS AN ANGRY LETTER TO THE TOWNSVILLE BULLETIN DEMANDING A CORRECTION FOR BEING 'VERBALLED'

This message was posted on the Bulletin's 'Comments' board, claiming to be from Miranda Devine herself :

"Your poor excuse for a journalist, John Andersen, has invented facts and verballed me in his column, `Low blow from Sydney'. I do not live in Cremorne. Nor do I have a maid. I did not use the word `hillbilly' to refer to North Queenslanders. And Laotians in Sydney are not consigned to `trimming the hedges and washing the socks of the rich'.

"He has concocted a bizarre fantasy that Sydney is peopled exclusively by wealthy people and their immigrant servants, and that I sit around drinking Moet for a living. This fiction appears to have been accepted as truth by some of your more gullible readers. I don't think inventing facts is any more acceptable for journalists in Townsville than it is in Sydney so I expect a correction."

To see what the facts that Miranda needs to correct herself from her original 'whingers' column, which senselessly kicked off this whole drama, go here.

If you're still bored, go and check out the latest stories at Your New Reality and Planet Of Strange Things. New stuff on the Australia Vs Indonesia Cartoon Wars on both sites.

2006-04-02T23:28:00.000+10:00

GENERAL PETER COSGROVE'S DISASTER DIARY

The man in charge of the Cyclone Larry recovery effort, General Peter Cosgrove, has a 'disaster diary' up on the Courier Mail detailing his first week on the ground.

Here's an excerpt :

"March 24 : I was trying to get my mind around the scope of the task while absorbing all the sites of destruction and the obvious desperate state of some people.

"I was very impressed by the stoicism and courage of the people I saw. A lot of people obviously had nothing but they were still smiling.

"They were drenched and standing in borrowed clothes and they were fossicking around amongst the wreckage and as you approached them they were telling you about their neighbour – 'I lost a bit but that poor fellow over there lost a lot'."

2006-04-02T23:00:00.000+10:00

MORE JOBS LOST IN INNISFAIL REGION AS SUGAR MILL ANNOUNCES CLOSURE

60% LESS SUGAR CANE TO BE CUT AND PROCESSED THIS YEAR

Mourilyan Mill, the oldest sugar mill in North Queensland, has announced it will not be opening for business this year, signalling further job losses in the region where more than 5000 people are already out of work due to the devastation wrought by Cyclone Larry.

The Belgian owners of the mill have decided the facilities are too damaged to start up again crushing sugar cane, and they are claiming a shortage of labour means they cannot repair the "unbelievable" damage in time.

This will mean a loss of around 150 full time jobs and some 60 seasonal positions.

Many hundreds of workers who lost their jobs when cane, banana, avovado and tropical fruit farms were destroyed in the cyclone were hoping to find replacement work at the mill.

It may be of small relief to those who now have no jobs and have lost their homes that they will be eligible for grants of up to $2000 from the recently, awkwardly, renamed 'Prime Minister and Premier Cyclone Larry Relief Appeal'.

Prime Minister John Howard and State Premier Peter Beattie obviously don't want the locals to forget just where this money is coming from, despite it being drawn from taxpayers. They've hardly reached into their own pocket to build the fund. Perhaps it should be called 'The People Of Australia's Cyclone Larry Relief Appeal'?

Those who no longer have homes in which they can live will be allowed to apply first for the $2000 grants, while those who are termed as 'needy', but have homes in which they can live, will have to wait seven to ten days before they can apply for the emergency cash grants.

$10 million has been set aside for this first run of grants.

At least 4000 homes in the cyclone affected areas have been determined as "unsafe", and will not have electricity reconnected.

Some 450 people have been placed in emergency accomodation by the Department of Housing.

The Johnstone Shire Mayor Neil Clarke told the Courier Mail that she is hoping Bundaberg Sugar will repair the Mourilyan Mill and have it ready to hire new workers at the start of the next season.

Only 40 per cent of the original sugar cane crop is now expected to be harvested.

(Info for this story was drawn from ABC News reports, the Courier Mail, news.com and the Sydney Morning Herald)

2006-04-02T22:57:00.000+10:00

7000 IN NORTH QUEENSLAND STILL WITHOUT ELECTRICITY, TWO WEEKS LATER

From news.com : "Almost 7000 north Queensland homes and businesses battered by Cyclone Larry are still without power. Electricity supplier Ergon Energy said 831 customers were today reconnected on the Atherton Tablelands and coastal area between Tully and Babinda, leaving 6,749 without power.

"Power was cut to almost 140,000 Ergon customers after the category-five cyclone slammed into the Innisfail area early on March 20."

2006-04-01T20:00:00.000+10:00

THE STUNNING SCOPE OF CYCLONE LARRY'S REACH AND THE TIDE OF DESTRUCTION

The true and total devastation and the rapid pace of recovery becomes crystal clear in this detail report from the (Queensland) State Disaster Management Group :

"Approximately 12500 sq kms were affected by Tropical Cyclone Larry from, Mareeba in the North to Tully in the south and west to beyond Mt Garnet.

"Significant damage occurred to houses, businesses, infrastructure, crops and state forests.
TC Larry travelled almost 450 kms inland to around Croydon before being downgraded to a rain depression. It took 13 hours to travel inland.

The pace of the recovery and rebuilding effort is also stunning, for all the right reasons :

"More than 1600 houses have been tarped.

There are approximately 617 State Emergency Service volunteers, Rural Fire Brigade volunteers, Queensland Ambulance Service, Queensland Fire and Rescue Service and
Department of Emergency Services personnel currently working in North Queensland on cyclone relief projects. "

All the roads are now open again, but smaller roads inland and on the coast are not in tiptop condition and have eroded.

Passenger train services to Cairns are now running again., same goes for the freight services.

A total of 156 schools in the region were affected by Cyclone Larry, and all have reopened.

Electricity is going back on faster every day, but a few hundred still remain on generators. Hundreds more homes judged too severely damaged will not be reconnected.

The water supply is coming back, but pipe integrity, pressure and hygiene problems still remained (as of mid-last week) at Innsifail, El Arish, Kurramine, Silkwood, Bingil and Mourilyn.

Expect that there have been significant changes to those figures above since this report was issued.

The power is now back on for all of the Innisfail CBD.

Most mobile phone services are back on and satellite phones are getting out to rural residents.

Here's some impressive figures from the initial response (all quotes are from the State Department Management Group report) :

Emergency response primary resources

Atherton Shire
· 200 personnel
· 30 trucks
· 18 bobcats, loaders and backhoes
· 50 chainsaws
· 10 generators

Mareeba Shire
· 30 personnel including 16 QAS paramedics
· 5 trucks
· 5 backhoes

Herberton Shire
· 120 staff
· 63 vehicles
· 21 backhoes, loaders, excavators.
· 5 generators
· 15 chainsaws

Eacham Shire
· 130 personnel
· Majority of council equipment being used

The Australian Defence Force deployed more than 400 personnel and thousnads of tonnes of equipment. And they did it in a few days.

Water is now available in most townships, but some are on limited supplies between certain hours.

The majority of damaged premises have been assisted

In the district, 94 farms have no power supply, with 33 working on generators.

Despite the damage, it's amazing what was pulled together and and deployed and achieved in less than two weeks.

Now here's the true scope of the Cyclone Larry destruction :

INNISFAIL :
· 50% damage to homes
· 35% damage to private industry
· 25% government buildings

SILKWOOD:
· 99% homes have lost roofs or suffered structural damage

FLYING FISH POINT:
· 15% homes damaged

ETTA BAY
· roof damage to 40% of homes

KURRAMINE BEACH
· 30% homes damaged
· damage to 15% industry

BINGIL BAY
· 30% homes damaged
· No damage to industry

MISSION BEACH
· 30% homes damaged
· 20% damage to industry
· 45% damage to caravan park

SOUTH MISSION BEACH
· 20% homes damaged
· 20% damage to industry

EL ARISH
· 30% damage to homes
· 50% damage to industry

EAST PALMERSTON
· 70% damage to homes

When you look at those figures above, as bad as the damage to homes is, you have to remember that some places like Mission Beach rely to the greatest extent on the tourist trade to stay alive.
Now, the next time you walk around your neighbourhood, imagine one out of every three homes without a roof, imagine one out of every five local shops and business being damaged and in need of repair and rebuilding, and imagine more than half the local hotels or motels or accomodation being shut down down for weeks, or months, to come.

That's how devastating this cyclone was to small towns in Far North Queensland. We still don't have full reports for all of the rural areas.

The people of Far North Queensland don't need any blankets or cans of food or raincoats (there were a few donated). They need cash to rebuild their homes, their lives and their businesses. There is money coming from the State and Federal governments, but not all of it is coming in one big lump. It will be drip-fed out and it will take time to reach those who need it the most. You can get money to those who need it quicker by donating cash via these services :

The Cyclone Larry Appeal on 1800 150 411

And they still need registered tradespeople who want to get up there and do some good and vital work for people who really need it. If that's you, call this number now : 1800 631 328.

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RURAL QUEENSLANDERS COUNT THE COSTS, CONTEMPLATE A TOUGH FUTURE, WHILE TOWNS START RETURN TO NORMAL LIFE

Photograph by Kevin Cheatham, taken in Gallo Park on the Atherton Tablelands.

It's almost two weeks since Cyclone Larry roared through hundreds of square kilometres of far North Queensland, and while the farmers are still trying to work out whether or not it's worth starting over, towns like Innisfail are quickly returning to normal, at least on the surface.

Innisfail is regarded as the worst affected township. The public schools have now opened back up, the high school is being rebuilt, most of the shops along the main street are open for business again and the emergency repair part of the recovery is just about over. Even the local theatre is staging a new play.

The AM program reports that some farmers who lost their entire crops, sheds, equipment are not prepared to begin the long road back to what they had before the cyclone struck. The damage is too severe, the shock of the loss too great.

AM : "Across cyclone-hit north Queensland, the rural sector is reeling. Ninety-five per cent of Australia's banana crop is destroyed. Cane growers have suffered significant losses. So much so that one north Queensland mill, damaged in the cyclone, won't be needed this crushing season.
Smaller properties too are in trouble."

Local business Charlie Ward told AM, "We have a small nursery business up in Upper Dowradgi (phonetic) in the rural area, about five acres of land and we sell foliage to the florists, to the Sydney and Melbourne markets, and sell plants. And our nursery's totally destroyed, there's nothing left. We probably won't get an income for about 12 months."

Macadamia grower Garrick Smith told AM the crop he lost took ten long years to grow.

"It breaks your heart," he said. "Trees have actually blown apart, they've split apart and they've been ripped straight out of the ground. And it's quite devastating. I'd be prepared to try again, but I would have to have a lot of financial help. At my age, I just don't have the capital to go back into it by myself.

Dairy farming family the Maier's are prepared to rebuild, but only so they can sell their farm and get out.

"Everything is mess," Elizabeth Maier told AM, "We had heaps of trees falling, falling trees. We had blocked laneways. We have no fences anymore. Not one paddock was okay because all the trees fall on the fences, everything is broken. My husband really stressed, and he said, 'We fix up the place and we sell it, that's it.' Because he don't want to go through that again."

Go here for the full AM story.

2006-04-01T19:19:00.000+10:00

MASS VACCINATIONS FOR CYCLONE LARRY SURVIVORS

From ABC News : "Queensland Health has begun a mass vaccination program for residents living in cyclone-ravaged areas of far north Queensland.

More than 40,000 people from South Johnstone to the Atherton Tablelands will be vaccinated.

Medical superintendent Jill Newland says the Health Department is concerned that the wet, cramped conditions could cause an outbreak of the common flu.

MENTAL HEALTH TEAMS NOW PART OF CYCLONE LARRY RECOVERY

The Queensland Health Department has announced that mental health temas are now operating in North Queensland communities that were devastated by the cyclone.

Health spokesman Kevin Freele said counselling would now play an essential role in helping the traumatised residents cope with the loss of their homes and jobs and small business.

The possibility of suicide rates increasing in the affected areas are being taken seriously, as the full impact of the cyclone begins to take its toll on residents.

Local MP Bob Katter warned last week, "I have a responsibility now to bring public attention to bear on what is now a very serious situation. There is a powder keg up there and it just needs somebody to strike a match."

More than 4000 locals now face unemployment for the nine or more months it will take for the banana industry to recover.

"The social breakdown is occurring now but it will move from being social breakdown to anti-social very swiftly unless people move to pick all those people," Mr Katter said.

"They are angry and they are going to vent is somewhere on some people. That is going to occur."

WESTPAC APOLOGISES FOR FREEZING CREDIT CARDS

Westpac Bank froze the credit card accounts of more than 1000 North Queensland customers during Cyclone Larry. They did it, they claim, for "protection".

But ABC News is reporting that local Westpac staff in Townsville were unaware of the "protection" program, presumably to stop fraud while electricity and phone lines were down.

Customers are angry : "There should be some warning and at least the banks in the districts that they've so gaily abandoned should be warned," one said.

2006-04-01T17:11:00.000+10:00

CYCLONE LARRY DIARY ONLINE

The Ninemsn News website is running an interesting Cyclone Larry diary from an Innisfail resident who details the experience of surviving the Category Four cyclone and the problems she now faces rebuilding her home and her life.

Here's one excerpt :

"I never really understood the stories I read about there being shortages of food. Our local Coles has been open since the day after the cyclone and it was only short of cold foods like dairy. And if you went to the main street in those first few days after the cyclone, there was free food and water. I think Qantas flew in about 6000 plane meals. There was even a jumping castle. It was like a street party!"

Go here to read the full diary.

2006-03-31T00:28:00.000+10:00

CYCLONE GLENDA SMASHES INTO TOWNS ON WEST AUSTRALIAN COAST

Screen grab from Channel 7 News of Category 4 Cyclone Glenda hitting Dampier.

For the second time in less than two weeks, a massive Category Four cyclone has hit the Australian coast. This time it's Cyclone Glenda and as we're posting it's slamming into small communities on northern coast of West Australia.

The town of Onslow is expected to be worst hit, but the full effect of a predicted massive tidal surge won't be known until dawn.

Go to the Cyclone Glenda : The Aftermath blog for more photos and reports, plus the latest news.

2006-03-29T10:22:00.000+10:00

SHARKS SWIM UP FLOODED RIVERS INTO FARM DISTRICTS

According to reports on the Australian ABC Radio, sharks have been spotted in heavily flooded rivers, moving into farmland districts of Far North Queensland.

The Leichhardt River burst its bank after massive rainfalls caused by Cyclone Larry. Several large farm stations are now cut off.

Kylie Camp, of Floraville Station near Burketown in the Gulf of Carpentaria, said she had seen sharks swimming in the flooded river that runs through her property. The sharks had presumably swam up the river from the coast.

"I've never seen so many snakes in my life and also some sharks as well," she told ABC Radio.

"We do see sharks sometimes below the waterfalls that are normally here. They're probably just trying to move out of the fast moving current into somewhere quieter."

The Leichhardt River was recorded as flooding almost ten metres high in Floraville.

2006-03-29T10:06:00.000+10:00

INSURANCE BILL HITS $250 MILLION

At $250 million, Cyclone Larry has clocked up the largest losses from a natural disaster in Queensland since Cyclone Althea smashed Townsville and Cairns in 1971.

But the insurance bill is expected to rise even higher as more claims are recieved in the weeks ahead.

The $250 million doesn't include more than $300 million in losses from crop damage which could not be insured before the disaster

2006-03-29T09:59:00.000+10:00

NEIGHBOURS PULL TOGETHER TO GET STARTED ON THE HARD WORK OF REBUILDING

Excellent story here from the Townsville Bulletin about how neighbours are pitching in together to begin rebuilding their neighbourhoods, and their lives :

"It was a case of neighbours helping neighbours at Innisfail East yesterday.

"The Rules of Clancy St were happy to give some of the wood from what was once their car shed to neighbours across the road, the Brosnans, who need it to repair their roof structure.

"Ann Rule said the Brosnans could take whatever they wanted from their property.

"The Rule's house lost its entire roof and the Queenslander home has been condemned to demolition.

"Mrs Rule's son, Brendan, helped Keith Brosnan dismantle the shed yesterday to retrieve some of the wood."

2006-03-29T08:41:00.000+10:00

ENOUGH WITH THE OFFICIAL VISITS, SAY LOCALS

In the space of just one week, the small North Queensland town of Innisfail has been visited by Prime Minister John Howard, the State Premier Peter Beattie, the Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson, three other QLD Government ministers, Federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley...and a stream of other 'officials', along with dozens of media crews, including a team from the Channel Nine Today show who thought a live broadcast from the cyclone-smashed town might be a good idea.

Former Defence Force chief General Peter Cosgrove liked Innisfail so much when he visited, he decided to stay. Well, that's not quite true, he's heading up the recovery team and thought it would be best if he was close by at all times. The locals don't seem to mind that he's stayed, but they're getting weary of all the others popping in, with media in tow, to "share the pain".

Turning up without media crews might have made some of these visits seem a bit more genuine, or if the officials had stayed around a bit longer. Howard, Beazley and the GG could only spare a few hours, and they ditched their Canberra fine-threaded suits for a more 'rural look'.

Beattie still comes back most days, and Cosgrove, of course, is now a temporary resident.

2006-03-29T08:28:00.000+10:00

BIZARRE. CYCLONE LARRY MAY HELP PROTECT GREAT BARRIER REEF FROM DESTRUCTION

Fears that the damage to the Great Barrier Reef might be devastating to the Queensland tourist industry have eased some initial assessments have been made.

Federal Environment Minister, Ian Campbell, has announced the Reef appears virtually undamaged, with only "a band of about 20 to 30km wide" affected, or about one percent in total.

Campbell touted the Great Barrier Reef as one of the healthiest reefs in the the world today, and repeated claims aired by some scientists that the arrival of Cyclone Larry cooled ocean temperatures around the Reef and in the process reduced the likelihood of coral bleaching, thought to have been one of the greatest threats to the viability of this major tourist drawcard.

2006-03-29T08:25:00.000+10:00

WIDESPREAD FLOODING, ENORMOUS FARM LOSSES IN GULF COUNTRY

From the Courier Mail : "While the Innisfail and Tableland region continued the clean-up today, rain from the remnants of Cyclone Larry caused widespread flooding in the Gulf country, with residents bracing themselves for crop and stock losses.

"Burke Shire Mayor Annie Clarke, who lives on a property south of Burketown, said she had heard reports of hundreds of cattle swimming for their lives.

"'They can't keep swimming forever, obviously,' she said. 'One fellow flew over his property and said he didn't see a beast and they had had 24 inches in a big catchment area."

"Several towns, including Burketown, Doomadgee and Gregory, have been isolated by floodwaters and more than 2000kg of food will be airlifted tomorrow.

"General Cosgrove was concerned devastated agricultural industries could be forced to shut down if they do not receive more support from financial institutions."

2006-03-29T08:09:00.000+10:00

CYCLONE VICTIMS ARE "A POWDERKEG" READY TO EXPLODE, CLAIMS MP

DON'T ABANDON YOUR HOME TOWNS, SAYS COSGROVE

Independent MP, Bob Katter, said the Cyclone Larry victims are like "a powderkeg" and warned it wouldn't take much for them to detonate.

"There are thousands of people walking the streets who have no homes, they have no jobs and they are very, very angry indeed," Katter was quoted as saying in the Courier Mail yesterday.

At the same time, the head of the recovery taskforce, General Peter Cosgrove, has appealed to those who lost their homes and jobs not to abandon the region by starting their lives over elsewhere.

"There is no technical health reason why they should leave. It's now a question of meeting their aspirations," General Cosgrove said.

There are now serious fears, as cited by Katter, that the thousands of locals now without homes and jobs and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder could "turn anti-social unless more help was delivered". Fears were aired late last week of victims being prone to suicide once the full scope of their monumental losses were absorbed.

More than 4000 people lost jobs through the destruction of the banana industry alone. Official figures of job losses from related businesses and destroyed farming industries have not been released.

2006-03-29T07:48:00.000+10:00

MORE MONEY IN INCREASED AID PACKAGE HEADING FOR THE 'LARRIED'

On a few days after Prime Minister John Howard announced the $100 million Cyclone Larry relief package, word gets out the cash payouts are to be raised substantially.

There was plenty of criticism that the figures cited for relief would not be enough, and the local federal member for the affected region, Bob Katter, raised it in Canberra during question time on Monday afternoon.

"I don't want to be made a hostage to this figure but I would expect the figure as far as the federal government is concerned to be well in excess of $100 million," Prime Minister Howard said in response to Katter's questions and concerns.

"It may even go much higher than that depending on the duration of the reconstruction period."

More on the proposed changes in the Sydney Morning Herald

2006-03-29T00:11:00.000+10:00

THE STORIES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

THE LIGHTS GO ON FOR THOUSANDS MORE EVERY DAY

BUT 4000 HOMES AND BUILDINGS TOO DAMAGED TO HAVE POWER RESTORED

Ten percent of the 12,000 houses and buildings assessed by electricity suppliers in Far North Queensland have now got their power back on.

But another 4000 homes and buildings in and around Innsifail were too damaged to be reconnected to the mains electricity supply.

When Cyclone Larry hit, more than 140,000 people lost their electricity acroos Innisfail, coastal areas east of Innisfail, the southern Tablelands, Tully and Babinda. Now less than 14,000 people are estimated to be still without power one week on.

DAMAGE BILL TO BREAK THROUGH $1 BILLION, SAYS COSGROVE

DISASTER PLANS NEED UPDATING

General Peter Cosgrove, co-ordinator for the disaster relief, told Channel 9 he's pretty happy about the first round of Federal and State government aid packages....but more will be needed. Much, much more.

There's plenty of volunteers and equipment, but Cosgrove's talking about "good old fashioned cash".

Cosgrove reckons the total bill from cyclone-related damage will head over $1 billion within a couple of years.

Of the disaster management plans that were already in place and fired up in the days before Cyclone Larry hit, he said they worked, but they now needed updating.

"The plans work extremely well but it is very hard to anticipate the exact nature and impact of a major disaster such as this. This is literally a once in 100 years event, the cyclone was almost off the scale and in that regard the plans actually worked so well as to prevent any major loss of life, it's a miracle."

(Cosgrove's quotes were rush-transcribed off a Channel 9 interview, so they might be a bit out)

THE QUEEN SENDS HER BEST REGARDS

Her Majesty Queen Liz passed this message onto the Governor General : "I was greatly concerned to learn about the terrible damage caused by last week's cyclone in north Queensland. I should be grateful if you could convey my sympathy to all those whose lives have been affected by this disaster, together with my admiration for the emergency services and all those many others who have been working so hard to alleviate the suffering."

If you really want to alleviate some suffering up there, Lizzie, cash in some of those Crown Jewels and send the money to Cosgrove.

2006-03-28T21:30:00.002+10:00

CYCLONE MIRANDA COPS A SERVE FROM THE PEOPLE OF NORTH QUEENSLAND OVER HER DISGUSTING 'STOP THE WHINGEING' COLUMN

We don't want to give that dim bulb Miranda Devine any more publicity for her vile-spew at the cyclone-shattered people of Innisfail (in the Sydney Sun Herald last weekend), but the reaction from people in North Queensland has been strong and bloody passionate, and they deserve to have their voices heard here.

It's a damn shame the Sun Herald won't give the people of Innisfail the same right of reply.

From John Andersen editor of the Townsville Bulletin :

"Miranda is really peeved that people complained about their predicament. She says that 'five minutes after the cyclone hit, locals were whingeing that 'they' hadn't arrived' to fix their broken homes.
"I think this a sad generalisation. I've seen people complain on the telly, which is where Miranda is getting most of her info, but I didn't come across any A-grade whingers during the five days I spent covering the cyclone and its aftermath.
But, if they wanted to complain, so what? They'd just been through hell. They were despairing. They were in varying degrees of shock, but not one of them played the blame game. They were just glad to be alive. Maybe if Miranda had gone to Innisfail and spoken to some of the people who had been 'Larried' she might have taken a different view.
But, gee, why would you leave Cremorne (Miranda's hometown) where you can sip on Moet and watch it on the telly?"

Next up, some reaction from Cardwell Shire Mayor Joe Galeano :

"If anything ever happened to the agriculture industry, there would be a lot of hardship in (Sydney) as well. A seven-hour cyclone changed people's lives forever. But people still need some support. The farmers are producing for the masses in Sydney.
He said anyone who thought North Queenslanders were whingeing about the damage from the cyclone should take a visit to the disaster zone.
"These people who make these accusations should visit Johnstone Shire, our neighbouring shire, and our beachfront at Mission Beach. If they visit that, they can see the destruction and the suffering. It's surreal. The only reason we didn't have any loss of life was because of the preparation. If people down south realised how important this was, they wouldn't say those kind of things."

Go here to read the rest of what Mayor Galeano told the Townsville Bulletin.

And here's just a few of the barrage of letters recieved by the Townsville Bulletin reacting to Devine's column :

Michael Hawkins : "...this despicable load of lies and insults concocked by a lonely insignificant low life, attention-seeking journalist from Sydney. Just forget that she ever existed. These wonderful people of the north are truly an inspiration to us all, so just keep giving us the good stories about them and forget about this poor lonely sole of sorrow from Sydney. Her thoughts amount to nothing up here in the North."

Leesa Farley : "I would call her a stuck-up snob. Not all Far North Queensland people are `whinging', just a few. Doesn't that happen in every society? Or should we call all Sydney people stuck-up snobs just because she is one? I'd like to see her go through Larry and find some food and shelter where there is none."

Jim Goodin : "Sydney columnist Miranda Devine does not speak for all southerners. I for one have been amazed at the stoicism and resilience of the people of North Queensland in the wake of Cyclone Larry. You are very much in my thoughts and prayers. Forget the Mirandas of the world, her words will be blow away by the gentlest of breezes."

Kellie Prince : "I'm disgusted at what Miranda has written. How dare she sit in her little office and comment. Miranda get off your lazy arse and go and help Innisfail and see how you can handle everything. Sydney are a bunch of snobby bastards. Get out of your little city and see how the real country has to live."

David Rennie : "(Miranda) probably wrote this article over a nicely chilled glass or two of Moet with her nose pointed upwards. Who cares about the little people? The people who battle on day after day to provide produce around the country so ignorant people such as Miranda can enjoy the fruits of this productive and generous region of Far North Queensland. Miranda is one person who next time she bites into a piece of fruit or sips a latte should think twice before writing such garbage about fellow Australians. Times like this a majority of decent Australians rally together to help others when they are down, whether they can afford it or not - they dig deep. The Sydney Sun-Herald should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this kind of negative fiction to be written and printed by their columnist."

Go here to read the original Miranda Devine column 'This Is No New Orleans, So Enough With The Whingeing' and this is her e-mail address if you'd like to tell her what you think : devinemiranda@hotmail.com

Miranda Devine : warm, safe and dry.

If you do send Madranter Devine an e-mail message, try and keep your reactions as civil as you can. No doubt she will take the abusive e-mails and use them to say how right she was or some such nonsense. You don't have to sink to her level to make your point. And feel free to post your reactions in the 'Comments' section below.

2006-03-27T08:21:00.003+10:00

STAND IN LINE FOR TWO DAYS IN THE RAIN, WITH NO NAPPIES FOR YOUR CHILD, GET ASKED BY A TV CREW HOW YOU FEEL, YOU TELL THE TRUTH, AND SYDNEY COLUMNIST MIRANDA DEVINE RECKONS YOU'RE A WHINGER

By Darryl Mason

The cyclone hammered people of Innisfail have been mightily slagged by Sydney columnist Miranda Devine, safely tucked up in her warm PJs as she delivers her scathing, bitter verdict on mothers with children in tow who spent two days or more standing in the rain in the Innsifail town square last week.All they wanted was dry clothes, food, water, nappies and some emergency cash.

But they're just a pack of bloody whingers, reckons Mirada Devine.

"We in Sydney are very sorry for the people in northern Queensland who have lost their homes to Cyclone Larry." Miranda wrote yesterday in the Sydney Sun Herald. "But, much as we will miss their avocados and bananas on our supermarket shelves, we can live without their whingeing."

I don't know who told Miranda she could speak for the people of Sydney, but she's dead wrong. People in Sydney who actually bothered to watch the news, and take it all in, saw only a handful of people complain about their extreme misfortune. Maybe Miranda was watching her own special channel where her view of the world is carefully filtered for anything that might infect her pre-formed opinions?

"This is hardly Hurricane Katrina," she writes. Yeah, it was Cyclone Larry, and it was actually more powerful than Katrina, despite the fact no-one was killed.

"Five minutes after the cyclone hit, locals were whingeing that 'they' haven't come and fixed it for them. Do they not have their own arms and legs?"

Miranda is being sarcastic here, of course, unless she really has no idea at all. And from reading the rest of her column, perhaps she really doesn't.

Five minutes after the cyclone hit, nearly all the people of Innisfail were still holed up, trying to protect themselves and their families from the 280kmh winds that roared through the town and tore apart and damaged more than a thousand buildings.

Miranda quotes the widely seen footage of local Shiralee Hazel, who aired her frustrations at a TV camera, as being indicative of the rest of the townsfolk.

"Effing do something now," Shiralee said. "That is my message for them. Get off their fat arses and do something."

Fair call? Sure. It's hard to imagine any of us could stand in queues for two days, in the rain, holding traumatised, hungry, wet, bored children and not demand everything move faster. You'd have to be mad, or heavily medicated, not to get worked up if you found yourself in Shiralee's sodden shoes.

Premier Beattie understood this, so did Opposition Leader Beazley, so did Prime Minister Howard. But not Miranda. In her fantasy world, all the common folk should just shut up and stand dutifully, silently, in line.

And where exactly were all these other people Miranda claims were 'whingeing'? Virtually non-existent perhaps?

There were a few who were pissed off enough to vent their frustrations publicly, but they were hardly in the majority.

Miranda had the opportunity, to an audience of many hundreds of thousands of readers, to point out how the North Queenslanders looked after themselves and each other at a time when it must have seemed like the world was coming to an end. For the many who are now trying to live amidst the destruction and deprivation forced upon them by the most powerful cyclone to hit Australia in a hundred years, their world has literally come to an end, but they're getting on with it. Not that Miranda can tell the difference.

"Australians, especially outside the big cities, used to pride themselves on their self-reliance and resilience, forged in a hard, unforgiving land. Now, according to images beamed back to Sydney, they have become helpless victims. A category five cyclone comes to town and it's all the fault of Queensland Premier Peter Beattie and Prime Minister John Howard."

She is simply baiting her readership here, and pandering to those who think anyone who needs to rely on their government for help at any point in their life must be lower than pond scum. Miranda will go weeks without writing something outrageous, obviously drawn deep from her own well of misinformation and prejudice, then suddenly there it is on her column page, dripping with bile.

Sometimes it seems like she only writes columns like this to get the expected reaction of furious outrage from readers, and the hundreds of letters that will prove to her bosses that yes, she is relevant and controversial, and that's why they should keep paying her six figures a year to bust her arse turning out a few thousand words a week.

"No doubt there are plenty of admirable people quietly getting on with rebuilding their communities," Miranda goes on, "but we didn't hear from them."

An absolute lie, flat out. On Channel Nine, Seven, Ten, Two and SBS, there was dozens of stories aired showing people rebuilding, clearing debris, cooking up food for the hungry, checking in on elderly neighbours, donating clothes and food and nappies and furniture and blankets, and we heard from them all right. We heard them say stuff like, "Well, this is what you do, isn't it? When people need help, when your neighbours need help, you help them."

Next she completely distorts the truth about all those locals who not only helped the SES and soldiers get the tarps onto the rooftops, but she claims people only complained the SES didn't hang around to get them fixed into place.

No, they didn't do that for every house. How could they? Last week there were only 80 or 90 SES workers on duty at any one time, and they had a priority list of 1000 or so homes to tarp, while the rains kept on falling.

"God forbid that people might have to do some work themselves," Miranda writes.

Yeah, all those mums comforting freaked out infants should have been up on the ladders fixing the tarps into place. Miranda fails to mention that in many cases SES workers told locals to not risk injury by climbing around damaged roofs in the rain, and that it was better to wait for more help to arrive.

But hey, why let the facts get in the way of a classic Miranda Devine Distortion Central splurge?

She also found it quite distasteful that local residents dared give Howard a serve when he breezed into town. And here I was thinking that slagging off a pollie was about as Australian as you can get. Not in Miranda's world. Jeering or daring to boo your Prime Minister is just plain rude and nasty and not on anymore.

Even Howard laughed off the abuse. Miranda, however, appears offended to her very core.

She then complains about the already infamous headline of the Gold Coast Bulletin, 'You're Too Damn Late!' in reference to the politicians who flooded in to see the damage for themselves and make with the photo ops, while "thousands of tonnes of aid sits stranded beside a highway they failed to fix".

Somehow Miranda finds this information innacurate, but again, she doesn't know what she's talking about. The Bruce Highway's long delayed improvements, a failure of successive State and Federal Governments, allowed the road to flood too deep for more than a dozen big trucks chock full of supplies to get through.

Had the Bruce Highway been fixed years before, raised above the flood plains, and earth-banked on both sides, as the locals and the local papers have been demanding for years, then obviously the aid would have gotten through much faster. Even Premier Beattie admitted the Bruce Highway neglect was wrong, and has promised the highway will be fixed within two years.

Miranda also writes, "The fact is that authorities gave plenty of notice of the cyclone and evacuated 1000 people from vulnerable coastal areas on Sunday, the day before Larry hit, presumably saving lives."

Yes, exactly. But the locals who decided to stay needed somewhere to evacuate to, didn't they? And they needed vehicles to get out of town. And if they were taking their young children, they needed supplies and clothes and toys and food. This stuff just doesn't fall from the sky when you get a few days notice of a cyclone coming. Yes, they should have had cyclone supplies, but what about when you work a full week picking bananas and you don't have enough money left over to build up that cyclone emergency stockpile? What then?

Miranda Devine has adopted the US Extreme Right's viewpoint of the Hurricane Katrina victims here. Hey, you were told to get out, if you decided to stay, you deserve what you got.

And then Miranda finishes her heartless rant with this : "The endless whingeing is a reflection on an affluent consumer culture in which people have come to expect that everything they want can be delivered in 30 seconds piping hot and preferably free if they only scream loud enough. "

"No inconvenience is tolerable, not even for an instant, and the consumer is always right."

So cyclone survivors are impatient consumers, are they? Instead of being Australians in need of help? Most of whom didn't complain at all, but understood exactly why those who did complain had to get out their anger and frustration. And if she thinks communities of banana pickers and farm workers are members of "an affluent consumer culture" then she's really got her head in the clouds. What many of these people earned for a forty or fifty hour week, Miranda picks up for typing a few dozen words.

Miranda's attitude to those far less than fortunate than herself (she could well afford to charter a helicopter to evacuate herself and her family from a danger zone, if necessary) is part of what has been called 'The New Meanness of Australia'.

It is an attitude where people in unfortunate circumstances are no longer tolerated, where Aussies who need help are not worthy of it simply because they had to ask for help in the first place. The Australia she describes is one where you are supposed to never expect your governments to be there to help you, even if you have spent your whole life working bloody hard and paying your taxes.

And it is a 'Mean Australia' few outside of Sydney's kill-or-be-killed super-speed corporate-minded culture would understand, or would even want to comprehend. This mindset is as foreign to most Australians as the cyclone that tore away the livelihoods of thousands of North Queenslanders.

Miranda Devine seems to live in some alternate reality world where people who have been deprived of their homes, dry clothes, food, water and their dignity are supposed to stand quietly in lines for two or three days and when asked for the tenth time by yet another media crew, "How do you feel?" should only reply :

"I...am...good..I..have...no...complaints...I...will...queue...for...a...week...and...never...get..angry
....or...upset."

Sounds like a cyclone swept through Miranda's head and her heart, carrying away her sense of compassion and her comprehension of the word 'empathy'.

And I doubt many Australians were surprised or offended, as Miranda appears to be, when a handful of hard done by mums, standing for more than eight hours a day, had a "whinge" about the queues and the rain and the time it was taking to get food, supplies and emergency cash sorted out.

Even John Howard understood why he copped some abuse when he entered the town. Some of it was angry, some of it was joking, but all of it was pretty much an Australian reaction. Howard obviously knows the people of Australia, and the people of North Queensland, a lot better than Miranda Devine does.

Australians watched the people of the town of Innisfail coping extremely well, under the circumstances, and felt proud that they complained as little as they did.

We were deeply moved by their shocking stories of survival and loss.

We were heartbroken by the terrible plight faced by so many mums and their terrified kids.

And we laughed, too, at the good-hearted farmers and local blokes who could still crack a joke when their lives were at their lowest.

How much more Australian than that can you possibly bloody get?

2006-03-26T23:38:00.000+10:00

BANANAS NOT JUST EXPENSIVE, NOW ALMOST NON-EXISTENT

AUSTRALIA LAUGHED AT BY REST OF THE WORLD FOR BEING FREE TRADE HYPOCRITES OVER FOREIGN BANANA BAN

A story in yesterday's Melbourne Age has revealed that supplies of Australia's most popular fruit will run out within days.

Coles and Woolworths' said they won't have a banana left in stock by the end of the week, if not sooner.

This means most Australians will have to live without bananas for nine months, at least. WA has a solid supply, but only enough for West Australians, and the Co-Op that controls the supply has already made it clear they won't be sending any bananas to the Eastern States.

The destruction of North Queensland's banana farms has revealed some astonishing facts about this fruit, least of all that it is not actually a fruit but a herb.

Up until last Monday, Australians consumed 15 million bananas a week, supplied by more than 1850 banana growers.

And there's power in those bananas. Apparently the growers and suppliers weild "a huge influence in a string of marginal Coalition-held seats along the Queensland and NSW coasts, a constituency the Howard Government is keen to protect", or so claims the Melbourne Age.

That's right, Australia has a powerful Banana Lobby. Stop snickering, it's true.

There is now a battle brewing between that Banana Lobby and Australia's most powerful supermarket chains to have the strict quarantine laws eased that keep out foreign banana imports. This battle began within hours of Cyclone Larry touching down last Monday morning.

From the Age : "On Wednesday morning, the Philippines — which produces 12 per cent of world banana exports — also approached the Government, offering help to make sure Australians did not go without their bananas. Both requests were rejected.

"Banana imports are banned because of the risk of exotic pests. Federal Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran said there was 'absolutely no prospect' of the ban being lifted. He said banana lovers should show sympathy for growers ruined by cyclone Larry."

McGauran said most Australians will have to keep the now suffering banana growers in mind when they complain about the lack of bananas through to the end of the year.

As part of their seven year long fight to get their bananas onto Australian supermarket shelves, the Philippines agriculture attache Maria Albarece has been talking up his country's product as "the most delicious bananas in the world".

Now that's just cruel.

From the Age : "Centre for International Economics economist Brent Borrell, an expert on the world banana market, said it was widely believed Australia was using the quarantine argument as a non-tariff trade barrier.

"'It is true that there is a lot of sniggering in Geneva (WTO headquarters) whenever Australia speaks up in favour of free trade yet maintains these effective trade barriers to products such as apples and bananas,' he said.

"He said Australia had among the most expensive bananas in the world, and countries such as the Philippines and Ecuador could put the fruit on Australian tables for half price."

So there you have it. Australians were already paying double, DOUBLE, the world going price for bananas and we were being laughed at as free trade hypocrites.

Nine months is a long, long, long time to go without bananas.

But you can always jump a plane to New Zealand, or take a weekend break in the Philippines, where you can enjoy 'the most delicious bananas in the world', for a lot less than what they once cost, and will cost, her in Australia.

Drooling...bananas, mmmm, yellow goodness, ohhrrr...

Stop it, must think of the suffering farmers

But apples and mangoes just don't cut it as a replacement.

The Banana Battle of 2006 has just begun.

Go here for an earlier story on the Australian Banana Crisis.

And go here for a slightly less serious take on the Banana Crisis.

2006-03-26T17:55:00.000+10:00

SURVIVORS GIVE THANKS FOR MIRACLES IN FACE OF MASSIVE DESTRUCTION

From ABC News : "More than 200 people have attended a thanksgiving service in the Innisfail Council Chambers, almost a week after cyclone Larry struck far north Queensland.

"Innisfail residents and recovery volunteers tramped across carpets still wet from last Monday to attend the ecumenical service.

"The Queensland Premier Peter Beattie and the head of the reconstruction task force General Peter Cosgrove were also present.

"In a voice trembling with emotion, Johnstone Shire Mayor Neil Clarke told the service that the hundreds of volunteers who had come to assist had become friends of the community.

"'Through the generosity of others and the resilience of all who live and love our community, this disaster hasn't changed our lives forever,' he said.

Mr Clarke told the gathering it is hard to believe that just a week ago, Innisfail was celebrating its local festival, The Feast of the Senses.

"'Just 24 hours later we stood in disbelief,' he said. 'Our beautiful shire was no more. I have never experienced such a horrific event and I pray none of us will ever do it again. Our planning and your preparation, and by the good grace of God, we all survived.'"

2006-03-26T17:19:00.000+10:00

MASSIVE ASBESTOS POISONING OF DISASTER ZONE POSES IMMEASURABLE THREAT

HOMES THAT LOST ROOFS NOW BEING SCHEDULED FOR DEMOLITION

TARPS AND CHAINSAWS IN SHORT SUPPLY

Photo by Jamie Hanson/The Sunday Mail. Go here for his photo essay of the Cyclone Larry aftermath.

From ABC News : "The head of the cyclone reconstruction team in far north Queensland, General Peter Cosgrove, says he is concerned about the risk of asbestos in affected areas.

The Workplace Health and Safety Department has issued warnings about handling asbestos, which is a material that is found in almost all Innisfail homes.

It is asking residents to wear gloves and face masks when cleaning up the material, which can cause lung cancer.

According to a story in the Townsville Bulletin yesterday, 984 Innisfail homes were waiting for a tarpulin to go over their damaged roofs to keep out the ongoing rain. All these houses were listed as 'high priority' by the State Emergency Service, and only those homes with at least part of the roof still intact were on the allocation list. To get allocated a tarp, you had to line up in the town centre to register.

If your house had completely lost its roof, you were not allocated a tarp. Although hundreds of Australian soldiers are now on the ground, as of yesterday, there was a crew of only 80 SES workers struggling to keep up with the massive workload. Tarps are in short supply, as are other essential pieces of wreckage-clearing equipment, like the chainsaws needed to clear trees from roads and yards.

Homes with no roofs are expected to be demolished in the coming months.

The number of homes already scheduled for demolition by insurance companies has reached into the hundreds, but fears of asbestos poisoning may delay many of these demolitions until late into the year. Nearly all Innisfail homes are believed to have some level of asbestos inside their roofs. Little has been said, as yet, about how much asbestos has been distributed through the local area when roofs were torn from homes and thrown dozens of metres.

Meanwhile, close to one thousand Innisfail residents are now homeless and are facing enormous challenges finding somewhere to live outside of the shelters and emergency accomodation.

2006-03-26T16:36:00.000+10:00

THE STAGGERING LOSS OF DIGNITY, THE TERRIBLE TOLL OF DESTRUCTION

Townsville Bulletin reporter Vicki Campion spent last week inside Innisfail, and surrounding communities, and has written a heartbreaking portrait of the people she met and the horrific scenes she witnessed. Go here for the full report, it was well worth reading in full.

Below are just a few of her observations :

"No one was spared in the North Queensland communities. If the family home made it through, the family car did not. Dogs went missing, at least one elderly man died of a heart attack and pregnant mothers had premature births.

"Those left with nobody sat in the ruins of their home, the relentless rain dripping in like some sort of Chinese water torture.

"Monday morning was eerie, the rainforest a decapitated skeleton of what was once known as the Great Green Way. It was a wind-whipped landscape. Trees were left leafless and uprooted.
Billboards were smashed. Panels of wooden fencing ripped apart. Banana trees snapped mid-trunk, their suckers flattened by the wind. Hectares of sugarcane left to rot in the mud.

"The first family we met was hysterical, the elderly woman of the house wearing her blue gumboots on the wrong feet, as she walked the circumference of what remained of her home, again and again. All she had left was her dead husband's orchids. The walls of her Queenslander could not be found, the iron of her roof morphed into a twisted grin on her front lawn. She hugged me. And cried.

"Further along in Mourilyan, the newly renovated century-old hotel is shattered. The roof has been partially flung off and the balcony collapsed. Men, hotel guests, were drinking a beer on that veranda. Here, they smiled and said they were lucky, they knew they would get through it.

INSIDE INNISFAIL : "Survivors stunned after spending the morning huddled with their family, under the bathroom sink, gripping the toilet, hours of hearing smashes as light fittings burst, as glass windows exploded, as the floorboards cracked from underneath their feet and their children screamed in fear.

"The town was void of life on Monday, save scrounging reporters and teenage boys with an appetite for destruction. But even they were scared, they just wouldn't admit it.

"Nearly 24 hours later the alarms of the TAFE college and Coles supermarket are still ringing, the gutters are piled with twisted rooftops, broken pipes and tree debris. The windows are still taped up and people are beginning to leave their houses.

"The only phones that work are pay phones and there is a half hour queue for those. Tensions are mounting and women scream at each other. 'I have no f...... house, no f...... power, no f...... any f...... thing. I have nothing.'

"Hungry children mill with their parents on Edith St at Hope's Kitchen, an accidental charity which began when a cafe owner cooked up the contents of his fridges for SES volunteers.Then his neighbour borrowed a drill and in return gave him three crates of bread. Hope's Kitchen was all that fed those children and their mothers. The volunteers have an astronomical mess of their own to clean up.

"'But what can we do with these kids? They have not eaten in days - turn them away?'

"Babies are wrapped in plastic to keep what little clothes they have left dry, four-year-old girls play on planter boxed trees that have fallen over. Firefighters are running into collapsed buildings and searching for bodies."

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Vicki Campion paints a very different scene of what happened last Wednesday when Prime Minister John Howard and State Premier Peter Beattie entered the town. She writes of how they came in dry clothes, surrounded by media, hauling their own generators, good and water supplies. Many locals called out angrily to the politicians and media, many more simply turned their backs on the Prime Minister and Premier Beattie when they visited the queues of people who had lined up for days in the rain for the most meagre kind of help and aid. A press conference saw promises of aid on the way, but the politicians' advisors were already aware that hundreds of tons of aid, food and equipment were stuck in the back of trucks trapped on the far side of the flooded Bruce Highway. This information was kept from the media and the locals until the Photo Opportunity Tour was well and truly over.

--------------------------------------------------

More from Vicki : "Evacuation centres were an ugly shell housing the most desperate. One classroom had three families - a total of six children and four adults sharing four thin single mattresses and a two-day-old loaf of bread. I play with a five-year-old there named Fritz with a spider man action doll. He said got it for Christmas. This year, he told me, all he wanted was a bed with sheets, shoes and something yummy.

"'And for mummy to stop crying,' he said. 'I'm going to be good for Santa.'

-----------------------------------------------------

It wasn't just the commercial networks that censored and downplayed the true scope of the suffering of the people of Innisfail, SBS and ABC also played their part in keeping the full story from the eyes and ears of all Australians as well. It is not simply that they censored the honest reactions of Australians booing the Prime Minister when he breezed into town, it is that they failed to report the full story.

Was it decided that it was all too much for Australians to see? Too heavy? Too monumental?

Well that is not for the media to decide, they were there to tell the full story, to report what they saw and heard, without filtering and shaving off the bitter, sharp edges.

Vicki Campion's staggering portrait of a town plunged into the pits of heartbreak and despair was one of only a handful of stories that treated the people of Innisfail with the honesty and dignity they deserved.

Prime Minister John Howard, and State Premier Peter Beattie, must have been very pleased with how the Australian media who travelled with them to Innisfail toed the line and reported pretty much only what the spin masters wanted Australians to see and to know.

The full story creeps out, only now, as the recovery and rebuilding begins.

2006-03-26T16:25:00.000+10:00

HUNDREDS OF AUSTRALIAN TROOPS ON THE GROUND IN NORTH QUEENSLAND

INNISFAIL MAYOR CALLS FOR END OF VOLUNTEERS REBUILDING HIS TOWN, WANTS LOCALS TO GET THE VALUABLE EMPLOYMENT

From the Courier Mail : "THE defence force support for victims of Cyclone Larry is in full swing, with a military presence over air, land and sea throughout most of the shattered area.

"Innisfail is rapidly resembling a garrison city as hundreds of troops take to the streets. They are backed by an impressive array of equipment, including a fleet of massive diesel V8 Mack trucks which haul 20-tonne trailers and still "out-bush-bash" any four-wheel-drive on the market.

"Infantrymen are cleaning streets, assault pioneers can turn a muddy quagmire into a usable road, and supply personnel are setting up mini-warehouses.

"Using a mix of aircraft and vehicles, troops from the Townsville-based 3rd Brigade and the Cairns-based 51st Far North Queensland Regiment have been providing relief supplies – including tarpaulins, water, generators and food – to affected communities.

"Defence force teams also have been involved in repairing vital infrastructure, including communications restored to local radio station 4KZ, bridge repair and clearing a local school of debris. The navy also has been helping on land and at sea, with heavy landing craft used to move equipment at times when roads have been cut.

"Navy craft also will be used to move supplies and equipment between Townsville and Innisfail to minimise traffic impact on the Bruce Highway, which has been subject to flooding."

----------------------------------------------------------------

But the deployment of so many Australian soldiers into the disaster zone and moving fast into a rebuilding phase has caused friction with Innisfail Mayor Neil Clarke. And he would like to see an end to the flood of volunteers pouring into his town.

Accomodation and infrastructure not damaged by the cyclone are already stretched by the influx of volunteers and workers, and he would prefer his community use local businesses and tradespeople to do the rebuilding, not outsiders.

2006-03-26T15:30:00.000+10:00

MONUMENTAL DESTRUCTION OF CYCLONE HITS COSGROVE HARD

DEMANDS $100 MILLION AID PACKAGE BE DOUBLED

An uncredited photograph of cyclone damage outside of Innisfail - news.com/AAP

GENERAL Peter Cosgrove, now leader of the Cyclone Larry Taskforce, has revealed the damage to infrastructure, crops and local businesses is so severe the $100 Federal and State government aid package will need to be doubled, at the minimum, and sooner rather than later.

The damage bill has already reached more than $1 billion for the North Queensland communities and towns that were hit the hardest by Cyclone Larry last Monday moring.

But it is not just the towns through which Cyclone Larry carved a brutal path of destruction that are going to suffer from a massive lack of cash in the months ahead.

Dozens of towns and villages rely on business and income generated by the tropical fruit farms, sugar cane and banana farms wiped out of existence. Thousands of local workers and backpackers will no longer be a part of the regional economies, and now they are gone every business from corner shops and pubs to motels, clothing stores and even local bus companies will suffer.

"The economy here has been totally smashed flat," General Cosgrove told the Nine Network.

"I have to say in my early and possibly less well-informed view (the aid packages) need to be at least doubled, maybe more."

INNISFAIL TOWN CENTRE GETS ITS POWER BACK

LIGHTS GO ON AT LAST, FOR SOME

General Peter Cosgrove, now living in Innisfail to oversee the recovery and rebuilding operations, said yesterday the restoration of electricty to dozens of homes and business was a good start towards the "momentum of morale" needed to drive the rebuilding of the battered North Queensland community.

Next on Cosgrove's agenda is firing up the economies of the regions worst hit towns, where thousands of jobs have been lost, along with homes and belongings.

"We've got to get people in a position where some of the businesses, and some of the industries, can get back to work to generate income and to create a sort of momentum of morale," Cosgrove told a pool of reporters in Innisfail.

"When you see Australians, who are wonderfully stoic, having their existence reduced to standing in a shell of a house and wearing clothes that have been donated to them, I find that personally very upsetting. I don't like to see my fellow Aussies going through this."

HOW ONE FAMILY SURVIVED AND BEGAN TO REBUILD

A very good piece from the Courier Mail following the life of an Innisfail family through the days after the cyclone hit, detailing how they opened their smashed motel to rescue workers and the homeless, feeding and caring for anyone who came to find shelter.

A few extracts from the story, which you can read in full here :

The night before Cyclone Larry hit - "The couple tape the windows on the hotel as rain falls. Dinner is served to the guests and the couple, along with the kids, monitor every movement of the cyclone via radio and television. They still think the cyclone may veer off. 'We were a little scared,' says Lindsay. 'But I was pretty confident of our physical safety because of the strength of the hotel. It's like a fortress.'

"11pm: Lindsay and Christine share a beer on the top veranda overlooking the South Johnstone. The rain is falling and they talk of nothing else but the cyclone – where it is, where it might land, what it might do. 'We were very concerned by that time,' Christine said.

The next day : "Midday. The couple begin making what remains of their rooms inhabitable as emergency workers pour into town looking for accommodation. They don't bother mentioning room rates, offering workers free rooms to sleep in for a few hours. Lindsay fires up the gas barbecue and fries steaks, sausages and potatoes to feed anyone hungry."

Last Friday : "9am:. Lindsay is up at 6am. He greets a guest with just a hint of a self-satisfied smile and asks: 'Do you want bacon and eggs for breakfast?' Having lived hand-to-mouth for four days it doesn't seem possible. But Lindsay ladles out platters of bacon, eggs and cooked tomatoes off his grill, pushing another slice of toast on to a diner before dishing out white bowls full of fruit salad. Someone has found today's newspapers in a nearby newsagent. A smiling diner looks up and smiles expansively, 'It's all just so . . . civilised,' he says."

2006-03-24T02:37:00.000+10:00

CYCLONE EXPOSES TERRIBLE PLIGHT OF AUSTRALIA'S WORKING POOR

Ken and Laura Willey were Innisfail locals, they worked together on the banana farms as pickers, not making much money, but enough to have rent a house and to have brought some secondhand furniture to make their lives more comfortable. They didn't have a lot before Cyclone Larry, but now they've got nothing.

They were just some of the hundreds of people who spent three or four days queueing up in the town square at Innisfail, waiting for some fast cash so they could get out of the devastated area and find some more work, and a new place to live.

They had been living in their old Commodore since their house and all their clothes, possesions and personal effects were destroyed on Monday morning. They had never been able to afford insurance, so they were left with the clothes they had been wearing for three days.

"We just want $300 that will allow us to last a few more days and let us get out of town," Mrs Willey was reported as saying, on News.com.

"There's nothing here for us any more."

"As soon as we get enough money for petrol and food we're going up to Cairns," Mr Willey said . "We'll get labouring work somewhere."

The Wileys are two of the hard-working Australians you never here about in a media obsessed with share market success stories, $10million celebrities' apartments, booze-fucked sports stars and super-boomer affluence.

The Wileys, like a few million other Australians, live from week to week, from one thin pay packet to the next, they don't own their own homes, they can't afford health or home insurance, they have few if any savings and one disaster like Cyclone Larry can render them poverty stricken and homeless, all within a few hours, completely wiped out., with no fallback, except for the old Commodore.

The Wileys regarded themselves as lucky that they had an old car to sleep in. There were hundreds in Innisfail who didn't even have that.

2006-03-24T01:32:00.000+10:00

BANANA CRISIS UPDATES

AUSTRALIA'S MOST POPULAR FRUIT BECOMES THE MOST RARE, AND EXPENSIVE

Happier days : Queensland MP Ron Boswell and the pick of the crop. Note : eating bananas will not make you morbidly obese, we think perhaps beer or pizza might be responsible.

80 percent of Australia's banana crops were wiped out during Cyclone Larry on Monday morning, and now the banana growers of Western Australia are facing acute pressure to send some of their produce east.

But it's not going to happen.

The Western Australian banana growers of Carnarvon have been fielding calls from the eastern states for five days now, but the Sweeter Banana Co-operative, which looks after eight of the ten bananas grown in the town, have announced there simply isn't enough of Australia's most popular fruit to go round.

40,000 cartons bananas are chomped down in WA each week, while pre-Cyclone Larry, the rest of Australia managed to get through some 400,000 cartons, that's about 12-15 million bananas a week.

Australians in the East are growing desperate for the golden fruit, as prices skyrocket to $7 and even $9 a kilo (up from about $1.50 in some shops before the cyclone hit), but that's just too bad.

As far as WA is concerned, the Easterners can go and get stuffed.

"....there is no bloody way any bananas are going over East," a spokesman for the Sweeter Banana Co-Op said. "We haven't got enough."

Meanwhile, Australia's largest supermarket chain has announced it may offer financial help to North Queensland's banana farmers to help them get back to producing Australia's most popular fruit as quickly as possible.

Woolworth's claims it is the banana industry's biggest customer and can shift, on average, more than 110,000 crates a week through its 700+ stores.

While the offer of financial aid appears completely charitable, this is after all big business, and right now there's no bigger fruit business than flogging bananas, if only Woolworth's could get their hands on them. Conditions of the financial aid will probably include exclusive deals for Woolworth's to get exclusive access to the very first crop of new Queensland bananas at the end of the year.

There has been no official announcement of a push by Woolworth's and Coles supermarkets to get the quarantine restrictions raised that stops Filipino bananas from reaching the Australian marketplace, but you can assume such talk is also now going on behind the scenes.

Massive banana shortages are expected to kick in hard in about two to three weeks time.

Bananas are also grown in Southern Queensland and on the New South Wales South Coast. But there was no major excess of bananas produced from these regions before the cyclone, so there still won't be enough to go round.

As strange as it sounds, with bananas possibly hitting ten dollars a kilo, Australia may soon see a banana related crime wave, with banana smuggling, banana truck hijacks and banana-related price gouging running rampant. Once anything gets this expensive, the criminals just can't resist.

As for the Filipino bananas getting into Australia to fill the massive void in the market?

Forget it.

No way.

It's not going to happen, or so say the MPs supported by the powerful Banana Lobby.

Only hours after the cyclone struck on Monday, and the full extent of the banana farm losses were becoming clear, Queensland MP Bob Katter was on television swearing up and down that no bloody Filipino banana would get into Australia, no matter how many little kiddies desperately scream, "Me want my 'nana mash now, mummy!"

While there are serious concerns about bugs and bacteria that can infect imported bananas getting loose in Australia, if imports were to be allowed there are big fears that once one very cheap Filipino banana get into Australia, then the flood of discounted product won't cease, even after North Queensland banana growers start turning out the caseloads of fruit again.

So that's it. Either you buy Australia's most expensive fruit and slowly enjoy that nutty, sweet goodness, or you find some other fruit to tuck into and dream of the day, sometime early next year, when you'll be able to buy bananas for less than a fiver and let them go brown in the fruit bowl, just like you used to do, back in the good old days of last week.

2006-03-24T01:25:00.000+10:00

FIVE DAYS IN AND PEOPLE ARE STILL LINING UP TO GET BASIC HELP

From News.com : "Last night, frustration was building in Innisfail where more than 100 people bunkered down at the Innisfail TAFE where the Red Cross was providing emergency food, care and shelter.

Single mother Sam Rook, 23, of Mourilyan, was nursing her sick two-year-old son, Darcy. 'We've been living in my Mazda until last night when I had to come here because my house in ruined and my parents' is too wet. They only just got tarpaulins today and are refusing to leave.'

"There was anger when queues of people up to 200m long waited to claim emergency relief funding from the Queensland Government. For many it was the third day they had spent in the slow-moving lines. When they got there they were expected to fill in a nine-page application describing their circumstances, assets and income, and how the relief money would be spent.

"Queensland's Department of Communities officers were unable to cope with the number of claimants, most of whom were receiving only $150 so they could buy essentials such as medicines, groceries and baby food.

"Carol Clarke said she had waited two full days to get to the front of the queue. She came back again yesterday, but collapsed inside the Innisfail Courthouse building and was taken to hospital."

2006-03-24T00:33:00.000+10:00

PRIME MINISTER ATTEMPTS TO COMFORT CYCLONE TRAUMATISED CHILD BY MAKING HIM SNIFF HIS SWEATY ARMPITS

Cyclone Larry presented Prime Minister John Howard with another opportunity to show just how compassionate and caring he really is, even if the Innisfail locals didn't want unsolicited hugs, perhaps they wanted....help? Food? Water? New shoes maybe?

Regardless, Howard was on a hugging streak. The poor child pictured above was innocently walking past, looking for a pair of shoes, when the Prime Minister spotted a gaggle of photographers and snatched the poor lad to his humidity-sodden chest.

The child was less than impressed, probably because he saw the extreme grimace on the face of his Prime Minister. Is close contact with the real people of Australia really so unplesant?

When Howard first walked through the storm-savaged town, he was greeted by a cyclone of boos and shouts of "Bloody Howard! What are you doing here?"

Of course, that cursed damn lefty-bias ridden ABC cut these scenes of genuine Australian honesty from all their news reports. The boos and yells turned to mild cheering when he announced big fat cash handouts....not right now, of course, later on, when all the details were sorted out, of course. This will allow him to announce the same $100 million aid package twice, maybe even three times.

The Cyclone Tour Of Opportunity moved onto Babinda where he stumbled into a building, its floor an inch deep with rainwater, then grabbed a broom from a local and made a surreal attempt to sweep up the water. Nice photo op, of course, hey look, the Prime Minister knows how to hold a broom. Howard tried to laugh it up when he realised he was surrounded by desperate locals who were getting edgy now the food and water supplies were almost gone. Howard laughed, cracked some pitiful joke, and nobody else laughed.

Howard left soon afterwards, and the people of Innisfail went back to lining up in the town square for two more days to get a few hundred dollars in cash.

Howard then stopped off in another town for a chat with a heart-broken banana farmer, who wasn't in the mood for a laugh either.

Now he's back in the warm, safe studios of Sydney media, Howard's been talking about how hard it's really going to be to get the North Queenslanders back on their feet, and although he understands their frustration (how exactly?), he told them they shouldn't expect miracles.

On the anger of Innisfail's locals, Howard managed to warp reality, "...I didn't find that was the case with the....great majority of people I spoke to, including in that long queue that has featured in the news reports this morning, that long queue at Innisfail, the majority of them were stoically understanding that everything was being done."

Yeah, whatever you reckon.

The Australian Army is on the ground and working their guts out, but they're struggling. They're short of manpower, they're short of equipment. After all, most of the Australian Army's heavy vehicles and the kind of equipment that would be perfect for this kind of operation is still in Iraq, along with at least eight of the Airforce's helicopters, two and a half years after Howard said he didn't expect the Iraq deployment to last more than six months.

On Monday, as soon as John Howard realised the extent of the destruction and the desperate situation of thousands of Australians, he quickly left Sydney and flew to the warmth and comfort of the VIP boxes at the Commonwealth Games.

But then it was straight onto Innisfail....the next day. First he had to do another round of media interviews to talk up his trip and the government's generosity. The people of Innisfail had to know, you see, directly from the PM what was going to be done to ease their pain and suffering. Pity most of them didn't hear those broadcasts. There was no electricity to plug their radios in.

Did Howard really need to blow a few hundred grand of taxpayers money invading Innisfail? Couldn't he have simply announced the relief packages from Sydney? Or spent the day with the Red Cross or Smith Family in Sydney helping to pack up supplies being rushed to the desperate people of North Queensland and to do some on the ground recruiting for much needed volunteers and donations? Sure he could have.

But there were desperate, freaked out Australians in suddenly-the-most-famous-town in the country, and they needed him, dammit, they needed to know that their Prime Minister was going to be there for them, with the media, for two or three hours, for a gratuitous photo opportunity. Opposition Leader Kim Beazley was there as well, of course. He wasn't going to miss out on the biggest human interest news story of the year so far.

At least State Premier Peter Beattie hung around to cop the wraith of the locals while Howard and Beazley jetted back to Sydney. Beattie even returned the next day to cop another serving.

2006-03-23T20:02:00.000+10:00

MILITARY NATURE OF RECOVERY EFFORT BECOMES CLEAR AS FORMER DEFENCE CHIEF PUT IN CHARGE OF OPERATIONS

ARMY PATROLS TOWN SQUARE AS LONG QUEUES BEGIN TO GROW DISORDERLY UNDER RAIN AND STRESS

The previously undeclared scope of the recovery and emergency aid effrt in North Queensland has come into sharp focus as former defence chief General Peter Cosgrove has been announced as the man in charge.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie and Prime Minister John Howard now hope the growing criticism and frustration of the cyclone survivors will quell with the announcement, but intense rains, flooded highways and fears of the arrival of Cyclone Wati in the same shattered regions of North Queensland are threatening to plunge the recovery efforts into total chaos.

The naming of General Cosgrove follows harsh criticism of the state and federal government's response to the rapidly intensifying crisis by the highly respected Major General Alan Stretton, who oversaw similar co-ordination responsibilities after the deadly Cyclone Tracey devastated Darwin in 1974.

"You've got to have someone recognised as being in charge, and they've got to keep the people (updated) on what is happening and convince them that there's a light at the end of the tunnel," Maj-Gen Stretton said on ABC Radio today.

ANGER AND FRUSTRATION CONTINUES TO SWAMP INNISFAIL

It's moving into the fifth day since Cyclone Larry smashed through Innisfail, and the residents are getting sick and tired of waiting in queues for food and water, clothes and cash.

Hundreds more welfare staff, rescue workers and government officials have arrived in the town, and repair and rebuilding work continues on houses, schools and main street shops.

The primary school is being repaired, but the high school will have to be bulldozed.

The rains were still falling yesterday, and the flood waters continued to rise outside the town, with the Bruce Highway completely cut. On the other side of the floodwaters, dozens of lorries and trucks were lined up filled with emergency supplies, equipment, beds, clean clothes, donated furniture and even a couple of fridges somebody had donated. But they couldn't get through. So instead the trucks had to turn around and drive more than 1000kms to get around the floodwaters. The trucks started arriving yesterday afternoon.

But for the residents, the eight, nine, ten hour long queues were just too much on top of losing their homes, their jobs and all their possessions. People broke down as they stood in the rain, still unable to completely comprehend what had happened to the quiet, calm lives they used to live.

Mothers were forced to clean out and re-use nappies due to shortages, and bored children dozed on their parents' shoulders as they lined up outside the council chambers where emergency cash and benefits were being paid out.

Psychologists are now warning of a wave of post-traumatic stress disorder, particularly among the young and the elderly.

On television news reports last night, soldiers could be clearly seen positioned around the crowds in the town square, ready to control the crowd should disorder or violence break out.

FEARS OF A WAVE OF DEPRESSION AND SUICIDE FOR FARMING FAMILIES WHO'VE LOST EVERYTHING

300 military personnel and 450 State Emergency workers and firefighters are now struggling to cope with the task of restoring power, roofing and dignity to a town of more than 8000 people, where almost hafl the homes are so damaged they cannot be lived in for the time being.

While electricity is being restored, there are fears that it may take a week to be turned back on in some outlying areas of Innisfail. For those further inland, and far more isolated than the towns close to the Queensland coast, it may be three weeks to a month before the power comes back on.

Prime Minister John Howard said he understood the anger and frustration, but offered no good news for those who will be forced to live for weeks like their descendents did 100 years ago.

"If more needs to be done it will be done but there is a physical limit to how quickly, with all the will and resources in the world, there's a physical limit to how quickly you can restore power," Mr Howard said on ABC Radio.

Water and sewerage, however, is coming back online faster than expected, and there are hopes the entire town of Innisfail will have water coming out of their taps and toilets that can be flushed by the weekend. These two things, at least, will make life more bearable.

But again, any good news is soon blackened by another harsh truth. Soon after the hundreds of homeless, cashless people lined up around the town square were told toilets and running water are coming back, they were told it will take months for all services to return to the way they were before Cyclone Larry struck.

Victims from outlying areas around Innisfail, many of whom remain cut off by floodwaters, also said they were being overlooked by the relief effort.

AnnMaree (AnnMaree) King, 43, who lives eight kilometres outside of Tully, had to travel by boat to reach Innisfail for basic supplies.

"The response has been good in one way but they seem to have slackened with people outside of the immediate township and I'm really disgusted with that," Mrs King said.

"People are hanging around ... and some people don't seem to be getting the help they need."

Offers of help have been pouring in, however, with tradesmen from all over Australia offering their services.

Unemployment rates in and around Innisfail are expected to climb to levels not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. But at least back then, the major farms were still growing crops. There are no major food crops anymore, they were torn from the ground by the cyclone or smashed into the dirt. That means there is nothing to harvest, and that means little work as the townspeople have come to know it.

There are serious fears now that Innisfail could be torn apart by a wave of suicide, PTSD and suicide attempts as farmers who've lost their homes, crops and livelihoods try to cope in a new reality they had never contemplated seriously before.

"It wouldn't surprise me if there was a spike in the rates of depression, possibly suicide, several months after when people realise the situation they are in - particularly the sugar industry which is just recovering from a decade of poor prices," said Australian Counselling Association national manager Philip Armstrong on ABC Radio.

Sources : information in the above stories culled from the print editions of the Sydney Morning Herald, the Courier Mail, the Daily Telegraph and The Australian, along with transcripts from ABC Radio programs and television current affairs shows - The 7.30 Report and Lateline.

2006-03-23T13:55:00.000+10:00

AUSTRALIA'S STRONGEST, DEADLIEST CYCLONES

Cyclone Tracey's path of destruction in Darwin, 1974.

Cyclone Justin (Cat 2)) struck Cairns, QLD, in March 1997, killing two people.

Cyclone Winifred (Cat 3) struck Innisfail, QLD, in Fenruary 1986, killing three people.

Cyclone Justin (Cat 2) struck Cairns, QLD, March 1997, killing 7 people.

Cyclone Bobby (Cat 4), struck Onslow, WA, February 1995, killing 7 people.

Cyclone Ada (Cat 4) struck Whitsundays, QLD, Janaury 1970, killing 14 people.

Cyclone 'Great Hurricane', struck Darwin, NT, January 1897, kill 28 people.

Cyclone (unnamed) (Cat 4), struck Mackay, QLD, January 1918, killing 30 people.

Cyclone (unnamed) (Cat 1) struck Broome, WA, December 1908, killing 50 people.

Cyclone Tracey (Cat 4) struck Darwin, WA, Christmas Day 1974, killing 68 people.

Cyclone Mahina (Cat 5) struck Cape Melville, QLD, in March 1889, killing 400 people.

Source : The Bulletin magazine.

Good round-up story as well in this week's The Bulletin on Cyclone Larry's impact on Queenslanders. Article also includes some more amazing survival tales :

“When the eye of the storm came, we went into the carpark and just stood there, looking at all the damage. It was quiet and really eerie.

“There was just nothing – no wind, no rain. I went out the front and all you could see was debris everywhere. There was just total calm for about 20 minutes, and then it all started again.”

2006-03-23T12:37:00.001+10:00

AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS FORCED TO EAT THREE YEAR OLD FOOD DURING CYCLONE RECOVERY WORK

The ABC News is reporting : "Members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), who are leading the relief effort in cyclone devastated far north Queensland, say they are being forced to rely on out-of-date rations to survive.

"A soldier, who wished to remain anonymous, approached ABC reporter Conor Duffy this morning to raise concerns about the quality of food that hardworking troops are forced to eat.

"The soldier said he has not eaten anything except for Army rations since he arrived in Innisfail.
He showed several ration packs in the back of his vehicle that contained out-of-date food. He also had two Army-issue chocolate bars - one had a use by date of November 2002 and the other April 2003. The soldier says he feels let down by the ADF."

So how old are the ration packs being handed out to the survivors of Cyclone Larry? Besides the public barbacue thrown on by the Hero Butcher of Innisfail, thousands of survivors have eaten nothing but ration packs since Monday afternoon.

2006-03-23T11:03:00.000+10:00

CYCLONE ICE CREAM, TROPICAL HIGHWAYS, FLOODING AND WORK

Queensland blogger Tanya has compiled a 'Top 13 List Of Things I Hate About Cyclone Larry'.

Here's five of them :

"The cyclone panic that hit the shops. People scrambling for ice cream is DUMB! What good is ice cream when you have no electricity for five days?"

"The people at work who thought a little flooding shouldn't keep me from work. There was no flooding, but I didn't go to work."

"The devastation that Larry left. I think everyone in this region now knows of someone who has lost everything."

"The petrol stations that increased their fuel prices by 10 cents per litre from Saturday. Trust the petrol companies to start rubbing their hands together greedily in the face of others' misfortune."

"The fact that the Bruce Highway is flooded again and the government STILL won't do anything about it. We are not a developing country, but sometimes I think we are when, every time it rains up here, the highway gets cut by flood waters. This is the tropics. We have a wet season. Which means rain. And the highway is the only direct link between the towns in the north. Why do the pathetic decision making government people neglect us and refuse to fix that road so that a little rain does not leave us stranded?"

An excellent list from Tanya, and well worth checking out.

2006-03-23T02:46:00.000+10:00

LATEST NEWS ON THE AFTERMATH

The Butcher Hero Who Just Wanted To Feed The Hungry

It began with a local Innisfail butcher. His cold rooms started getting warm after Cyclone Larry cut the power to his shop, so he found some big barbecues and began cooking his entire stock of steaks, chops, sausages and rissoles for the very hungry locals. More food arrived with the hundreds of volunteers who poured into the area on Tuesday, more barbecues were set up, the queues of locals got longer. Now many Innisfail residents reckon the local butcher is a hero. Nobody asked him to start cooking, he just did it, and he was reluctant on Tuesday to tell anyone his name. Hopefully he will do so soon, so he can be properly thanked, and honoured.

Volunteers Power Through 48 Hours Without Sleep

There were so many people who needed help with getting food, water, baby supplies, hygiene products, that many of the volunteers didn't sleep for 48 hours straight. By the time, most of the first shift found a dry spot to catch up on some sleep, more than 3000 people had been fed and clothed.

'Handpicked By Larry' Fruit Boxes For The Hungry

Local farmes have donated the now very expensive bananas and avocados, the last from the region for the rest of 2006. Keeping up with the good humour and dry wit that has been an international talking point of the rescue and recovery effort, some of the farmers scrawled a message on the boxes of rare fruit : 'Handpicked By Larry'.

Power Still Out For 20,000 As Floodwaters Keep Rising

As the rains continue, the floodwaters keep rising, not just in the rivers, but in the new ponds created in the midle of fields and football ovals. All the flooding and rains are playing havoc with efforts to get the power back on.

As of midnight, more than 10,000 people in Cairns were still without power, as were another 10,500 on the Atherton Tablelands.

Babinda Gets A Visit From The Prime Minister, But Remains Isolated

It was raining when the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, visited the small North Queensland town of Babinda. He was there to meet with banana farmers who had lost their entire crops and to announce aid packages worth more than $100 million.

But now the town of Babinda is quickly being cut off from the rest of the world as the floodwaters rise, and this means no electricity can be restored to the region. Volunteers are trying to get in with supplies in boats.

Body Recovered From Storm-Smashed Area

The first body has been recovered. The man, aged in his 70s, was found next to a caravan in the Johnson Shire. Police believe he may have died during Cyclone Larry. The cause of death has not yet been established, but there were no visible physical injuries. Police are thinking natural causes or a heart attack.

Relief Packages Could Climb Towards $1 Billion

The Prime Minister and Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie, quickly drew up plans on Monday night and Tuesday morning for aid and relief packages worth an immediate $100million, but the overall amount needed for total recovery, rescue and rebuilding, as well as grants to help farmers get their farms back in business, could climb towards $1 billion. Storm losses to banana and sugar cane farmers alone are now estimated at more than $320 million.

Innisfail's Hungry And Homeless Queue All Day In Rain To Get Emergency Cash

Young families and elderly people were among the Innisfail residents forced to stand in long queues all day outside the small town hall, and when they were told emergency cash payments were not yet ready to be handed out, the anger and frustration boiled over.

Premier Peter Beattie copped an earful from one elderly man, before he broke down and was comforted by Beattie, who told the media he understood the pressure locals were under.

"There is enormous emotional pressure on people, there are going to be a lot of angry frustrated people out there".

What made the waiting worse was the bureacracy. Still shocked and traumatised by the cyclone that had them pinned down in their homes, and under their homes, for more than four hours, as roofs and parts of their homes were carried away, the battered residents were forced to queue up twice. The first time was to get some documentation. Then they had to queue again to get a cash payment.

One mother, Christine Stone, has six children, and she waited in the queues for more than 10 hourws.

And the rain kept on falling. 200 to 300 millimetres were recorded for the area in just 24 hours, causing even more flooding that threatened to block the highway.

(Factoids sourced from ABC.com, smh.com.au, news.com,au and talkback callers on Radio JJJ, ABC Radio and 2GB in Sydney)

2006-03-22T15:34:00.000+10:00

RESCUE AND EVACUATIONS DISRUPTED BY
TORRENTIAL RAINS

INNISFAIL NOT OUT OF DANGER ZONE YET

CYCLONE WAIT GATHERS MASSIVE STRENGTH OFF THE COAST

From the Courier Mail :"Heavy rainfall has disrupted the flow of relief supplies today to cyclone-devastated north Queensland.

"Torrential rains lashed coastal areas between Cairns and Ingham overnight, with falls of up to 300mm recorded in the 12 hours to 9am (AEST). Rain has caused significant rises in the Tully and Murray rivers and moderate to major flooding in smaller coastal streams.

The Bruce Highway between Innisfail and Townsville is closed while the Bruce Highway has been shut north of Cardwell at Euramo. The roads, which also have been significantly damaged by flood waters, are not expected to reopen until at least midday on Saturday.

Bottled water, a field kitchen, portable toilets, generators and meals have been delivered to Innisfail as part a massive relief effort underway there in the wake of Cyclone Larry.

Up to 55mm of rain was recorded in one hour in the town, which bore the maximum category five cyclone early Monday."

Supplies being sent to Innisfail include:

23 pallets of water (7,000 litres)

one field kitchen (caters for 200 people for 24 hours)

16,000 ration packs (48,000 meals)

several generators

6,000 in-flight meals provided by Qantas

eight portaloos

50 barbecues and gas bottles

500 stretchers and sleeping bags

one shower unit (catering for 120 people an hour)

a small medical aid facility

a water purification trailer (able to produce 7,000 litres of water an hour)

Some 2,000 pizzas were being delivered to Innisfail from this afternoon.

2006-03-22T14:52:00.000+10:00

EXPERTS BAFFLED BY STRANGE NEW CYCLONE MOVING TOWARDS QUEENSLAND COAST

From the Sydney Morning Herald : "Tropical Cyclone Wati is hovering off Queensland and forecast to intensify but weather experts can't say whether it will cross the coast. There had been fears Wati could follow Larry's destructive path and bring a second wave of devastation to flattened parts of far north Queensland.

"Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre forecaster Tony Wedd said Wati, a category three cyclone sitting 600km north-east of Mackay in central Queensland, could intensify into a category four over the next 24 hours. He said Wati is currently 400km in diameter with wind gusts of up to 190kph near its centre.

"'It will be fairly slow moving and remain off the coast for the next few days - it's hard to predict it's movements after that,' Mr Wedd said. 'We just have to play a wait-and-see game'."

2006-03-22T03:17:00.000+10:00

THE NIGHT OF HOWLING HORROR

TALES FROM THE SURVIVORS

From The Australian newspaper :

"We didn't even know the front of the house was gone...We just heard all this glass and then the eye (of the cyclone) came over and the neighbours told us the front was gone. I've never seen anything like this. We have lost everything. It was terrifying. You think you're going to die - you think your whole house is going to go and you will be clinging to nothing and you will fly up into the air....You hope the rest of the house stays there, so you have something to hide in. The wind sucked stuff out of the bedroom and even our cupboards. It was just amazing."

From The Courier Mail :

"We were huddled inside a shed with a four-wheel-drive and tractor and it literally blew apart the shed. We spent two-and-a-half hours underneath a Land Rover and then the last wall came down on top of the Land Rover and pinned us beneath the bloody thing. Our biggest worry was hypothermia for the kids because they were lying on wet concrete."

From The Age :

"It was howling, just howling.It would howl and then it would slow down and you would hear all this banging because there were trees hitting the roof and the garage roller door was flapping and bowing out. Next we heard a big crash and there was a huge tree out the front of our yard and all the big branches have fallen off the top and lying in the road."

2006-03-22T03:04:00.000+10:00

THOUSANDS LEFT HOMELESS AFTER CYCLONE

YOUNG FAMILY LIVING IN A TENT, FORCED TO COLLECT RAIN WATER IN DIRTY BUCKETS AS SUPPLIES SLOWLY ARRIVE

One young Queensland family spent last night sleeping in a tent in an open field at the showgrounds on the edge of Innisfail.

The Army set up the tent as part of a small tent city for the newly homeless. While many residents have fled the devastated town to stay with friends and families, hundreds have been left with nowhere to go, and no way to get out of the area.

"They told us to come here," the young father told the Australian newspaper, "but I've just found out we have to leave here because the sewerage system has started to fail. My partner doesn't really want to stay in a tent with a baby ... we were told there would be food and water here but we've hardly got anything."

Meals arrived with charity workers, but fresh water was still in short supply. The homeless were forced to clean out buckets and bottles to try and collect the rainwater now adding to the flooding in the region.

2006-03-22T02:50:00.000+10:00

AUSTRALIAN ARMY ON THE GROUND IN NORTH QUEENSLAND

EXPECTED TO BE BIGGEST DISASTER RELIEF OPERATION IN AUSTRALIAN HISTORY

The Australian Army has now deployed 400 troops into the disaster zones. They are helping to distribute more than 50,000 meals to North Queenslanders hit hard by the destruction of Cyclone Larry. Some of the same troops who swung into emergency relief mode in Banda Aceh after the December, 2004, tsunami are now on the ground and at work.

The full extent of damage and destruction in North Queesland is still not known, as the cyclone continued on through vast regions of the isolated far north of the state in the six hours following its central front of destruction in Innisfail. This could turn out to be the largest relief effort in Australia's history.

Emergency beds have been provided by the Army for more than 500 homeless residents of Innisfail and surrounding towns, along with portable showers and toilets.

The same water purification technology used in Banda Aceh has now been deployed to the region.

Queensland police, the Red Cross and the State Emergency Service have also deployed hundreds of workers and volunteers.

Electricity supplies remain out for many towns, with supplies expected to be restored to most residents within 48 hours. For Innisfail residents, the wait might be a week long or more. More than 45,000 businesses and homes were still without power as of midnight. In some areas the entire electricity supply network will need to be rebuilt.

Cuts to electricity have also meant cuts to the supply of fresh water through pipelines. More than 7000 litres of fresh water have been trucked in, with residents again being reminded to boil any water they collect themselves from rain catchers and backyard swimming pools.

(Information culled from the Australian Newspapers, the Courier Mail and ABC Radio)

2006-03-22T01:54:00.000+10:00

YES, AUSTRALIA HAS NO BANANAS

YELLOW GOLD CAUSES RUSH ON FRUIT SHOPS

NINE MONTHS WITHOUT 'NANA MASH, INFANTS DESPAIR

Heartbreaking scenes of destruction for all Australian banana lovers.

I'm down to my last five bananas, and one's already on the turn, but I'm going to savour them all. Thanks to the genuises who thought it was a great idea to locate virtually all of Australia's banana farms in the same small region of North Queensland - Tully, Innisfail, Atherton and Kennedy - Australians must now hang their heads sadly and weep openly as they declare : Yes...We have no....bananas. We have...no...bananas...today!."

Or tomorrow.

$2 for a single banana?

Maybe even $3

More expensive than mangoes? The impact on Friday night cocktails, afternoon office snacks, kids' school lunches and infants' mushy breakfasts is going to be huge.

We have to make jokes, otherwise we'd cry.

Prices for bananas in Queensland are already hitting $6 and $7 a kilo. When stores open in Sydney tomorrow, browning stink banans are expected to fetch close to the QLD price, with June-July estimates going as high as $8, possibly even $10 a kilo..

Incredible.

Banana price-gouging!

Other Australian states grow bananas, but are unlikely to want to share around the golden goodness. No problem, New South Wales hosts most of the Australian Military's major bases, so if they won't share the bananas around, we'll just have to send in the troops to liberate us some of those bananas.

Despite the recent choruses of suckhole praise for free trade and globalisation/global trade, the Australian government is unlikely to allow foreign imports of bananas from local producing countries like The Philippines to reach our fruit shops.

Apparently there is an Australian Banana Growers Council who oversee the $320 million plus yearly trade of bananas between states, and fight like cornered bulldogs to keep foreign bananas out of the Australian market.

The biggest push to ease up such trade bans is likely to come from the supermarket empires like Coles and Woolworth's. This could get ugly. The Queensland growers won't be able to turn out a new crop until Christmas at the earliest, and the major supermarket chains will likely use this tremendous gap in production to bust the trade bans and get us back our cheap bananas.

Stunning. The powerful banana lobby will be hitting up the Prime Minister John Howard during his visit to the cyclone ravaged regions today to pony up some fast cash so they can get the farms back into action. No insurance you see, banana crops are, apparently, uninsureable.

Sugarcane farmers have been hit hard as well, with losses estimated in the low $100 million range. Cane farmers have recieved more than $1 billion dollars in Howard government handouts in recent years as they struggled to survive droughts and heavy international export competition.

Besides bananas and sugar, Australians will also face massive shortages of paw-paws and avocadoes, with more than $15 million worth of avacado crops lost to the cyclone.

So farms in North Queensland supplied 95% of Australians' bananas, almost all the paw paws and more than 80 precent of the avocadoes.

Hmm, here's an idea....

SPREAD THE NEW FARMS OUT ACROSS DIFFERENT STATES!

2006-03-22T01:00:00.000+10:00

INNISFAIL'S ANGER AND BLACK HUMOUR

At least a hundred Innisfail houses were destroyed, hundreds more lost their roofs. Photo by Mark Baker/AP, taken from the Sydney Morning Herald website.

INTERNATIONAL TELEVISION VIEWERS STUNNED BY AUSSIES CRACKING JOKES ABOUT RUINED LIVES AFTER DISASTER

The world got to see just how Queenslanders coped with the aftermath of the most powerful storm to hit the Australian coastline in almost 100 years yesterday.

Some were furious at what they said was a slow rollout of emergency workers and soldiers, bringing food and water to towns cut off from the outside world by a lack of electricity and roads completely blocked by fallen trees.

Innisfail resident Ailsa Crotto told the Sydney Morning Herald that she hoped she would run into Prime Minister John Howard when he visited the storm savaged town today.

"I'm going to give him a bloody earful. What help are we going to get?" she demanded.

Howard was the focus for much anger across talk radio in North Queensland yesterday, after he visited the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, instead of heading straight to the disaster zone.

Nobody would have been surprised to see and hear anger, frustration and tears from people who had lost their homes and their livelihoods, but millions of international television viewers saw somethin else from many of the Australians interviewed by roaming news humours.

Jokes, laughs and black, black humour.

A number of people writing on media comment boards in England, France, Germany, Russia and the US, have been surprised and stunned by the jokes cracked by numerous Innisfail residents as they picked through the remains of their homes.

Footage from Australian television of the day-after-the-disaster has been shown right around the world

"What is it with those Aussies?" one comment to a French website read. "They lost their homes, their whole town is destroyed, but they think it's funny?"

"Americans screamed for help after Katrina," wrote a German, "Australians instead have laughs."

They may have been reacting to comments likes these made by Innisfail residents only hours after the cyclone had shredded the roofs from hundreds of homes allowing heavy rain to saturate their belongings. Each of the televised quotes from Innisfail residents below were followed by hearty laughter.

"I only brought this house two weeks ago, it didn't have an indoor pool back then. Now it's got one. "

"My neighbour thought he'd be safe hiding in the cupboard with a biscuit tin on his head."

"I'm living in my car. That means I don't have to get out of bed to drive to the shops."

"I didn't used to allow smoking in the house - but there's plenty of fresh air now," one woman said as she lit a cigarette in her roofless home.

"The carpets are ruined....I hated that bloody those bloody carpets anyway."

"I didn't used to allow smoking in the house - but there's plenty of fresh air now," one woman said as she lit a cigarette in her roofless home.

2006-03-21T23:48:00.000+10:00

INNISFAIL DESTROYED BY CYCLONE

HUNDREDS OF HOMES LAID TO WASTE

RESIDENTS FORCED TO DRINK POOL WATER WHEN SUPPLIES RUN LOW

NO DEATHS REPORTED

The main street of Innisfail yesterday morning. Photo : Eddie Sarafik, sourced from The Australian.

INNISFAIL WITHOUT ELECTRICITY, RUNNING WATER, DISEASE OUTBREAKS FEARED

All the residents of the North Queensland town of Innisfail have survived what is now being called the biggest cyclone to hit Australia in a century.

Emergency crews, military and volunteers are flooding into the town from all over Queensland.

Bottled water, canned food and emergency ration packs are being distributed, but the door knocking of devastated homes is ongoing.

Many residents have left the town after they emerged from makeshift shelters to find their homes unliveable., but thousands have chosen to stay on, some living in tent cities still being erected late last night, others have set up camp in their cars, trucks and vans.

Electricity generators have been brought into the town by Australian Army, but fuel supplies are low.

Residents are being advised to boil all drinking water, and have been told they can drink water from their swimming pools, if supplies run low, but only after long boiling.

As of midnight, there remains no electricity, no running water and no working sewerage in the town smashed hardest by the Category Five cylone early yesterday morning.

North Queensland is tropical, and there are now serious fears of mass outbreaks of water-borne viruses and diseases like hepatitis and dengue fever. Rain continued to drench houses stripped clean of their roofs throughout yesterday, and massive pools of stangant water have formed, breeding grounds for mosquitos that carry a host of tropical viruses.

The storm-damaged Innsifail Hospital has closed and all the injured have been transported to hospitals with electricity and running water.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie visited Innisfail and was clearly shocked by the extent of the damage to homes and buildings and trees.

"The whole bloody place is blown apart ... this is going to be a long, slow recovery," he said.

2006-03-20T09:51:00.000+10:00

95% OF AUSTRALIA'S BANANA CROP DESTROYED : CLAIMS QLD MP

ESTIMATES LOSSES OF $150 MILLION, 2000+ JOBS

BACKPACKER TOURISM INDUSTRY EXPECTED TO BE HIT HARD

The Queensland MP, Bob Kater, gave an emotional update to Channel Seven news on the shocking damage sustained by fruit, vegetable and sugar farms in and around Innisfail and the Atherton Tablelands.

Kater has estimated possible losses of 95% of all banana crops in the farming districts of North Queensland. His first guess rough estimate was $150 million in losses for the banana industry alone.

As many as 3000 full-time jobs in the farming district may have been lost to the storm. Like many farming districts of Australia, there are few full-time jobs outside of the farmiling industries. Even worse, many of the full-time farm workers also live in the area and have had their homes destroyed.

While the banana farms are expected to have suffered the greatest losses, substantial damage has been been done to local sugar, fruit vegetable farms in the Innisfail and Atherton tableland areas.

There is a second major fallout to the destruction of the farmlands. Thousands of backpackers find part-time, casual work picking bananas, fruits and vegetables on the farms, earning the cash they need to continue their journeys around Australia. But, being young backpackers mostly, they also spend a substantial amount of their earnings in the locals pubs and in the bars and nightclubs back in Cairns.

While the stunning beauty of Cairns, the beautiful, calm villages of Innisfail and the rugged sweep of tablelands has drawn hundreds of thousands of tourists each year to the area, the farming jobs have proven extremely important in drawing younger backpackers, and the work and money earned keep them in the area longer. The longer they'd stay, the more they'd work, the more they'd spend.

No-one has been willing to estimate the losses to the backpacker tourist industry as yet, but it is expected to be in the tens of millions of dollars.

MP Bob Kater estimated it may take more than 12 months for many of the farms to recover.

The Innisfail and Atherton Tablelands is also believed to be the main milk producing region of Queensland, and Queensland milk also makes it as far down the coast as New South Wales.

And still Cyclone Larry has not finished. It has weakened to a Category Three, but it now roars on through the countryside in a south/south-west direction.

The main road between Innisfail and Cairns is awash with floodwaters, and other roads have been blocked by fallen trees.

The true scope of the damage will take a few days to come into clear view, but few in the rescue services and police forces expect it to be anything less than devastating.

2006-03-20T08:42:00.000+10:00

LATEST UPDATES

Similar new tropical storm to Larry now sits 2000km off the Queensland coast. It continues to build strength, likely to form into a Category Three in the next 24 hours, but no information about where it would make landfall, whether it would retain or increase its strength,

Very strong winds still reported in Cairns, gale force winds hitting the Atherton Tablelands inland from Cairns.

Cyclones weaken as they cross the coast, losing the heat beneath them from the warm ocean, but it can take hours to lose a head of steam like Cyclone Larry held.

Greatest threat at the moment appears to be the widespread flooding and the problems with electricity, which could be out to thouands of houses for days, if not weeks.

The eye of the cyclone was so small, yet so intense. Simliar in strength to Hurricane Katrina, but lacking the width and it this storm kept moving, while Katrina almost hovered in place over parts of New Orleans and Mississippi. To get to a Category Five, you need an incredible mix of weather and atmospheric conditions, which are reportedly incredibly rare.
Hamilton Island had 60knot winds last night, but escaped major damage.

Numerous eyewitness accounts of sheets of metal ripping free from sheds and factories and flying through the air, entering other buildings and crashing into cars.

The bucket from a cement truck was ripped from the vehicle and was seen rolling down a street in a North Queensland town.

The Army is on full stand-by for the deployment into the disaster zones.

Australian Army troops stationed in Townsville spent the night preparing for the rescue and recovery effort. They will be moving in to devastated towns like Innisfail later today with supplies of tarps, water, chainsaws, ration packs and other essentials.

Still only thin reports about what homes are unliveable or too damaged to live in. Innisfail appears to have lost dozens of houses to the storm.

Calls from Moreeba on radio, winds still roaring through the town of 12,000 people, the eye just passed, winds of second stage causing massive damage, roofs torn away, sheds and warehouses destroyed.

Banana farmers around Innisfail are reporting whole plantations destroyed, and are expected to be out of business for at least twelve months. Miles and miles of sugar cane fields reported destroyed, along with entire fruit and vegetable farms. First estimates of $310 million worth of damage. "An absolute tragedy for the farmers," a radio announcer declared.

2006-03-20T08:35:00.000+10:00

CYCLONE LARRY CALLED A HIGHLY UNUSUAL CYCLONE

24 hours ago, Cyclone Larry was 500 t0 600 kilometres off the North Queensland coast, and was topping towards a Category Three. The speed with which the cyclone increased in strength and then moved towards the coast has stunned meteorologists.

Highly unusual behaviour from what was believed to be a powerful, but not particularly dangerous cyclone on Saturday afternoon.

However, the US Navy regarded it as dangerous enough to remove three warships from the Townsville area where they were supposed to have docked for the weekend on Saturday.

2006-03-20T08:25:00.000+10:00

MASSIVE STORM DAMAGE REPORTS ROLLING IN, POWER LINES DOWN, POWER STATIONS EXPLODING

8.30am in Queensland and Cyclone Larry has well and truly made landfall.

Townsville has escaped any major damage. But farther north the news is growing worse by the minute.

A radio station announcer from Cairns claims winds outside of Cairns have reached 320kmh winds.

Massive explosions reported at power stations around Cairns, hundreds of miles of power lines down, leading to problems with electricity. Blackouts began before the eye of the cyclone hit, and have continued up the north Queensland coast from Townsville. Minimum estimate of thousands of homes will be left without power, for days, or weeks.

Radio station announceer said 130-180kmh winds are still blowning through Cairns, yet sightseers have been spotted cruising the Cairns Esplanade sight-seeing.

Gale force winds are shredding farmlands across the Atherton Tablelands. Callers to radio stations are reporting sheds, farmhouses, trees, farm equipment, gone as far as they can see. Families barricaded themselves into basements and into cars parked in garages, packing blankets and pillows around themselves to protect against breaking windows.

2006-03-20T08:05:00.000+10:00

LIVE FROM INSIDE INNISFAIL

Resident Des calls Channel Seven live on air from inside Innisfail :

(rush transcript) - "Terrifying...total destruction...roof is gone, standing in water up to my ankles at the moment...in a church...I'm on my own...a tree has just fallen on a house....streetlight touching the ground....the destruction is frightening....we've been through the eye....but it's just come back with a vengeance....it is just full on...this is scary stuff....I hate to see what the destruction is going to be when it's finished....you can't see much, it's that blowey...all you can see is a grey sheet of water horizontal to the ground and it's taking everything in its path....everything....it's the worst we've ever seen....to be in it....nothing gives me the willies, I don't get scared much, but this enough to scare any man..."

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie was just on Channel Seven. He said homes have been flattened, "an enormous amount of damage has been done. The initial winds softened up the town if you like....then the winds came again and picked up the various things that were loosened...sheets of tin...and then threw them at the other buildings...At this stage it looks like Innisfail has been pounded very badly. Part of the problem in Innisfail is that the local radio station has gone down...We'll be sending in assistance...rescue teams...."

Beattie : "It's too late in terms of evacuation....it's too late now...What they have to do is simply batten down, wait until the cyclone passes and we'll provide assistance when that is done."

Warns locals to stay inside until rescue teams arrive, sheets are tin are flying around, deadly. Beattie said two to three hours to get rescue teams in.

Black Hawk helicopters close by, Beattie talked to PM Howard about having the military helicopters deployed as soon as they're able to go. "Everyone is ready to move in....but we have to wait until the wind abates."

Beattie then said, "The armed services are at our disposals. Large (military) base in Townsville will be of help, they will (go in as soon as possible)."

An appeal to help those affected by the storm will launched later today.

SUMMARY : Cyclonic winds are hammering Innisfail, houses have been flattened, buildings destroyed, air filled with wreckage and flying sheets of tin.

Prime Minister John Howard has told QLD Premier Peter Beattie the military will be available for deployment into the disaster zones as soon as it is safe to do so.

Massive rescue and recovery work is expected to be needed in and around Innisfail, and towns in the district.

Cairns is now experiencing gale force winds, no signs of major damage as of this moment, but the winds are clearly strong and moving debris about.

2006-03-20T07:21:00.000+10:00

CATEGORY FIVE CYCLONE SWEEPS INTO INNISFAIL, NORTH QUEENSLAND

Innisfail before the storm, described in realty guides as being in the heart of Queensland's tropical north.

The small town of Innisfail on the North Queensland coast is being hit hard by the cyclonic winds of this officially declared Category Five storm.

Innisfail resident Diana O'Brien told ABC Radio that at dawn her home was vibrating steadily from the force of the winds, now reaching towards 150kmh as the eye of the storm moves onto the coast.

"The rain is so heavy, the air is all white with the rain. We're just at first light here, there's only a little bit of light in the sky, the sun hasn't really come up yet and we're getting winds now from the west and all the trees are leaning over at an angle of 45 degrees or more."

Innisfail was home to eight thousand residents. A good number of those residents are believed to have evacuated themselves to the homes of family and friends outside the area, on Saturday and Sunday. An unknown number have stayed and taken shelter in the emergency shelters provided by the town's authorities.

The main street of the small, picturesque town of Innisfail, now facing the full Category Five force of Cyclone Larry. Reports from inside the town as the cyclone eye nears are thin on the ground.

--------------------------------------

ABC Radio for Far North Queensland has just lost a transmitter at Mount Bellenden Ker to the cyclonic winds, and at least two local frequencies are reported to be off the air at this time.

A cyclonic storm warning was issued two hours ago for the area Cairns to Bowen.

A gale warning was issued for the area Cape Tribulation to Mackay.

A strong winds warning was issued for Mackay to Double Island Point, including Hervey Bay.

2006-03-20T06:54:00.000+10:00

CYCLONE LARRY IS ABOUT TO COME ASHORE

Here's the FAST NEWS :

* As of half an hour ago, reports coming in that severe winds gusts of over 120kmh had begun along the Cyclone Larry stormfront. Rain is pounding other areas, including Cairns, Townsville and Innisfail, which is, unfortunately, about to become the most famous town in Australia. This is the town that is likely to face the full intensity of the 280kmh winds that now swirl around the eye of the cyclone.

* Power blackouts are popping up across the electricity grid from Townsville to Cairns.

* The full force of the tial surge has not become fully clear as yet, though the final tide is expected to be well beyond the highest tides seen so far this year. The tides, which could rise two to three metres above the average, will affect hundreds of kilometres of the far north coast of Queensland.

* The most dangerous time for these tidal surges should prove to be up until midday today.

* Reports of the full scope of evacuations are still not clear, though some radio reports have mentioned upwards of 3000 people have either left their homes voluntarily, or been asked forcefully to evacuate.

* The Category Five intensity of Cyclone Larry could last well into Tuesday morning as it moves at least three hundred kilometres inland on a path not yet locked in by the storm trackers.

MISSION BEACH FIRST TOWN SHOWING STORM DAMAGE

ABC Australia reporter said the town of Mission Beach has lost power, with lines down, the majority of homes have been evacuated, with residents sheltering in evacuation centres, which include local schools and hotels.

"Gale force winds are pounding the tourist town and I can see debris flying through the air. Trees are being torn out of the ground and heavy rain is now causing flooding."

A number of homes in Mission Beach sit just back from the beach at a distance of only a few metres. All these homes are expected to suffer major damage when the storm surge rushes up the beach and into the houses.

An unspecified number of hospitals sit in the path of the cyclone, though most, if not all, are believed to have been successfully evacuated.

CYCLONE, SMYCLONE, CAN WE STILL GO FISHING?

A radio station relayed this story from Cairns : While the Port Authority has be moving empty boats and vessels up into the creeks that snake off the Trinity inlet, to prevent them being smashed ashore on the tidal surge, one Darryl Wilson of Fishtales Charters felt like he was living in the Twilight Zone yesterday afternoon. People were still turning up at 4pm wanted to book fishing trips for the next day.

When he told one couple there wasn't a chance in hell any of his boats would be going out into the cyclone, especially not for fishing trips, the could then asked if they could book in for the next morning instead.

Hopefully this is a tragic example of just how uninformed North Queesnlanders were of the incoming cyclone, and not an example of how stunningly stupid this couple were.

DETAILS OF DECLARED DISASTER ZONE ANNOUNCED

From The Courier Mail, Brisbane : "The Government's disaster declaration takes in areas around Cairns, Innisfail, Mareeba, Townsville, Mackay and as far west as Mt Isa and stands for seven days.

"Army Black Hawk helicopters were placed on standby at Hughenden, with the police jet and the State Government's executive jet ready to fly out of Moranbah, southwest of Mackay, to help in operations today. Defence personnel and rescue workers were bracing for winds of up to 280km/h."

2006-03-20T04:33:00.000+10:00

CONFIRMED : CATEGORY FIVE STORM TO HIT NORTH QUEENSLAND COAST

TWO HOURS TO LANDFALL

With less than two hours to go before Cyclone Larry slams into the North Queensland coast, Channel Seven in Sydney is reporting the storm is now officially a Category Five. The small town of Innisfail (population 8000) is expected to be the worst hit community, though the full path of the storm is not yet completely known.

2006-03-20T04:03:00.000+10:00

SIX HOURS TO LANDFALL

SECOND SUPER CYCLONE BREWS UP BEHIND LARRY

(Satellite photo removed due to technical problem - originally showed Cyclone Larry close to the coast of Queensland, with Cyclone Wati forming more than 1500 out to sea)

Jesus Christ, what the fuck is that thing to the right of the Cyclone Larry storm?

This image just arrived by e-mail, and as of this minute there is not a word anywhere, anywhere, about what that second thing is. What the hell is going on? There's a virtual news blackout in Australia right now. Most of the news websites are leading with stories written four or five hours ago. They will be updated, but apparently only when the staff get into the office. This is beyond belief.

There are at least six or seven inhabited islands under that second 'apparent' monster cyclone, has it destroyed entire civilisations? There is nothing, not a word on what is happening out there, barely any information about what is happening on the coast of North Queensland.

And Cyclone Larry just keeps getting bigger, the closer it gets.

There is no category beyond Category Five.

2006-03-20T03:45:00.000+10:00

CATEGORY FIVE STORM DESCRIPTION

This is description of a Category Five storm from the US National Hurricane Weather Centre :

"Winds greater than 155 mph (135 kt or 249 km/hr). Storm surge generally greater than 18 ft above normal. Complete roof failure on many residences and industrial buildings. Some complete building failures with small utility buildings blown over or away. All shrubs, trees, and signs blown down. Complete destruction of mobile homes. Severe and extensive window and door damage. Low-lying escape routes are cut by rising water 3-5 hours before arrival of the center of the hurricane. Major damage to lower floors of all structures located less than 15 ft above sea level and within 500 yards of the shoreline. Massive evacuation of residential areas on low ground within 5-10 miles (8-16 km) of the shoreline may be required... "

HOW THIS DESCRIPTION MIGHT PLAY OUT IN REGION TO BE HIT BY STORM :

There are literally tens of thousands of buildings in the storm path that were not built to take even a Category 3 storm, large areas of camp grounds, ballpark estimate of 1000 or more caravans and trailer sites in parks and campgrounds, most roads near the coast are low-lying, and in many places there are only one or two roads in and out of the smaller towns, and as far as massive evacuations go....there were evacuations, but they were by no means massive. It's impossble to get figures yet for how many have been moved clear, but it's likely to be only the low thousands. There was no major emergency plan to swing into action. Nobody was expecting anything this big.

2006-03-20T02:03:00.000+10:00

SIX HOURS TO LANDFALL

Gale warnings announced for areas 7ookmh inland.

Gusting winds are now being reported from Ingham to Port Douglas.

Forced evacuations of some towns along the coast are taking place.

Queensland authorities are unaware if an unspecified number of camp grounds and isolated backpacker hostels have been fully updated as to the rising strength of Cyclone Larry.

Evacuation shelters from Innisfail to Cairns are filling rapidly.

The front cover of the Townsville Bulletin (above) on Sunday afternoon, one of the few Queensland papers online, though its latest updates on Cyclone Larry through late Sunday night, early Monday morning, came from the main news feed of its parent site news.com.He predicted small communities would most likely feel the brunt of the storm, and homes within 300m of the beach. "This is usually 50km south of where it hits the coast because the storm moves in a clockwise motion."

The newspaper reported last night that residents of Townsville are expecting Cyclone Larry to be the worst tropical storm in living memory.

Director of the Centre for Disaster Studies at James Cook University David King was quoted as saying : "'It will be something we will have never experienced before."

The previous biggest cyclone to hit Townsville was on Christmas Eve, 1971. Cyclone Althea was a Category 4 storm. It killed three people and caused property damage worth $115 million. The tidal surge from that storm was measured at 3.66 metres.

On Magnetic Island, now currently in the path of today's cyclone, more than 90 percent of all houses were destroyed.

"Larry should be scary to people," Dr King said told the Townsville Bulletin.

2006-03-20T01:48:00.000+10:00

US WARSHIPS FLED CYCLONE ON SATURDAY

The USS Germantown

Three US warships left the Australian coastline around 5pm on Saturday afternoon, only hours before their scheduled docking in Townsville, one of the many towns expected to be directly affected by the incoming cyclone.

The USS Peleliu, USS Ogden and USS Germantown, carrying more than 4000 sailors and servicemen, staged a quick turnaround on Saturday and steamed well clear of Cyclone Larry.

No official announcement has been made as to whether they will make their servicemen and equipment available to help out with the post-Cyclone Larry rescues and evacuations.

The Townsville Bulletin reported on Sunday, "the three vessels were sailing out to sea, believed to be headed for Singapore."

Townsville bars, clubs, hotels and restuarants had expected the US servicemen to spend some two million dollars while they were in port. Most of the venues had expected to be fully booked over the coming days, but now they will likely play host to the evacuees pouring in from the cyclone affected areas.

2006-03-20T01:08:00.000+10:00

QUEENSLAND AS PREPARED AS IT CAN BE FOR MONSTER CYCLONE NOW BEARING DOWN ON CAIRNS, PORT DOUGLAS, CAPE TRIBULATION

Cairns Esplanade before Cyclone Larry.

The Queensland's Counter Disaster and Rescue Service (CDRS) announced late last night it had done everything it could to prepare for Cyclone Larry.

Premier Peter Beattie confirmed authorities now have the legal power to force people from their homes if they refuse to leave.

"[It] empowers police or their delegated representatives to obviously to get people to move out of danger areas," Beattie was quoted as saying on ABC Radio.

"If they don't, then obviously they can moved forcibly - we don't want to do that - we're appealing for people to cooperate with the police.

"We're not asking people to move because we've got some stupid game going on - there is a threat to life and we need to be very serious about it," he said.

Mr Beattie and State Emergency Services Minister Pat Purcell, who are in Mackay this weekend for a community Cabinet meeting, are holding more talks this evening with police and other authorities.

More than ten thousand sandbags were delivered last night to unspecified areas in the looming disaster zone. Hundreds of volunteers were reported to be working through the night to get the sandbags in place around vulnerable buildings such as hospitals and evacuation shelters.

Rescue workers are expecting massive problems in towns hit by the 250-300kmh winds. Normally if a small town is hit by a natural disaster (floods and tropical storms are common in North Queensland), rescue workers and volunteers from surrounding towns pour in to help out. But because of the massive 400kmh storm frontage, dozens of towns are expected to suffer severe wind damage and flooding, destroying the possibility of help arriving from nearby towns.

Beachisde residents from Cairns to Townsville were last night told to get out and move as far inland as possible.

The mayors of towns in the areas expected to be hit worse have been shocked by the predictions of what Cyclone Larry will bring to their towns. They now expect the damage to be the worst their towns have ever seen.

As late as sunset yesterday afternoon, tourists from Sweden and the UK taking the day's last rays on the Cairns Esplanade were totally unaware such a huge storm was moving towards them.

Few of the backpackers hostels in Cairns had informed their patrons of the storm rapidly moving in from the sea.

BACKPACKERS, TOURISTS COMPLETELY UNAWARE OF MASSIVE CYCLONE ABOUT TO STRIKE

Cairns before Cyclone Larry arrives

Possibly due to the fact that Cyclone Larry increased its monumental winds from a Category 2 to the edge of a Category 5 in less than six hours, tens of thousands of people in the path of destruction remained completely unaware this storm was coming in.

This includes thousands of backpackers and tourists staying at hotels, backpackers and camp zones between Cairns and Cape Tribulation.

Even up at late last night, there were few signs in the weather that Cyclone Larry was coming.

When reporters approached some backapckers in Cairns they thought they thought the reporters were lying and that they were taking part in a practical joke-type TV show.

CYCLONE LARRY HAS A STORM FRONTAGE OF 400 KILOMETRES.

2006-03-20T00:41:00.000+10:00

SEVEN HOURS TO LANDFALL

CYCLONE LARRY TURNS TOWARDS CAIRNS, PORT DOUGLAS

Thousands of people have been evacuated from towns and villages along more than hundred kilometres of North Queensland's coast.

The tourist resorts in Cairns and Port Douglas have now begun evacuations. Unconfirmed reports of mandatory evacuations and residents being forced to leave their homes are now reaching Queensland radio stations.

Hundreds of State Emergency workers are going through towns and villages door-knocking to encourage people to leave the danger zones.

The storm surge is still being reported as likely to be between two and three metres high, with some of the latest reports suggesting the hide tide may even be above three metres.

Severe weather conditions - hard rain, driving winds - are now beginning to hit towns along the coast between Innisfail and Cairns.

Cairns harbour, port and the airport are close, all flights have been suspended. Smaller regional airports have now also grounded flights scheduled for later this morning.

Hospitals in Cairns and surrounding towns are now being evacuated.

The Queensland Premier Peter Beattie declared an official disaster situation last night, this has allowed authorities for forcibly remove people from their homes who are refusing to go. There is no official word on how many people have been removed from their homes this way.

CYCLONE LARRY IS EXPECTED TO BLOW WINDS OF MORE THAN 280KMH FOR THE NEXT 30 HOURS (minimum) AND WILL REACH HUNDREDS OF KILOMETRES INLAND

The latest warning (at the time of this post) issued in the last few minutes by the Brisbane Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre is terrifying, and they're playing it cautiously :

"Severe Tropical Cyclone Larry poses a VERY SERIOUS THREAT to life and property in the warning area.

"The VERY DESTRUCTIVE CORE of SEVERE TROPICAL CYCLONE LARRY with extreme gusts up to 280 km/hr should cross the coast between INNISFAIL and MISSION BEACH between 7am and 9am MONDAY MORNING. DESTRUCTIVE winds are expected to commence along the coast between INGHAM and PORT DOUGLAS early MONDAY MORNING.

"Coastal residents between Cairns and Townsville are specifically warned of the
DANGEROUS storm tide as the cyclone crosses the coast. The sea is likely to
steadily rise up to a level which will be significantly above the normal tide,
with damaging waves, strong currents and flooding of low-lying areas...."

UPDATE : Cape Tribulation, the beautiful World Heritage Site and one of the last remaining pockets of ancient rainforest in Australia is now in Cyclone Larry's path.

2006-03-20T00:00:00.000+10:00

HURRICANE LARRY IS NOW THE STRONGEST STORM TO REACH THIS PART OF QUEENSLAND SINCE 1971.

A North Queensland blogger describes the pre-cyclone panic : (she went out to stock up on essential supplies)...."and I walked right into CYCLONE PANIC!!....People were pushing and shoving to get at supplies. But here is my question. If you're stocking up for three days of power failure, why are you buying icecream?? A worker was standing at the battery section just filling up the shelves, which were being emptied as fast as they were filled. People had trolleys full of cans of coke (ever so essential) and toilet rolls.

"The eerie thing about the cyclone is that, until about a minute ago, the air was dead calm. Overcast and REALLY humid, but not a breath of wind. Now there are gusts that will slam a door, but that dies off really quickly. We're getting hourly weather updates on tv now."

2006-03-19T23:40:00.000+10:00

FIRST MAJOR INTERNATIONAL COVERAGE OF CYCLONE LARRY
BLOWS IT BIG TIME BY MESSING UP PHOTO

UPDATE : This photo shows a cyclone that has already made landfall. When this showed up, the cyclone was still at least six hours off the coast. This is more likely to be a sat pic of a cyclone that hit Western Australia a few years. Still unsure.

EARLIER POSTING : In its first mention of the 'clone now bearing down on North Queensland, The Drudge Report posted this incredible image of Cyclone Larry, except they posted it upside down! The last bastion of media accuracy! Nice one, Drudge!

"Cyclone Larry's about to hit Austria? Where the bloody hell is AUSTRIA?"

Cyclone Larry

2006-03-19T21:59:00.000+10:00

EIGHT HOURS TO LANDFALL

Off the coast of Queensland, Australia, one of the biggest cyclones seen in this part of the world in decades is now brewing up to a monster Category Five.

It is expected to make landfall between 7.30am and 8.30am.

Some radio stations are reporting there will be winds of 300kmh when it hits land.

Although North Queenslanders are used to some pretty big, and pretty regular, tropical storms, people are getting very, very nervous. This is going to be a big one, and images of the destruction, chaos and human suffering seen in the US after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, are fresh in the minds of locals.

Tens of thousands of locals hit the shops this afternoon, stocking up on water, baby care products, food and batteries. Many shops are already reporting such stock has either sold out completely, or supplies are running very low.

Mile long traffic queues outside petrol stations can be seen up and down the North Queensland coast and well inland, as locals fill their tanks and top up propane gas tanks.

Cyclone Larry has built quickly, catching the Queensland State Government and locals off guard. In the space of only five hours, the cyclone shifted from a Category Two up to the brink of a Category Five.

MANDATORY EVACUATIONS are now on. The State Premier is on TV and radio saying get out of the way now, don't wait another minute.

HOW TO UNDERSTATE THE THREAT :

From the Australian Bureau of Meteorology :

"Coastal residents between Cairns and Townsville are specifically warned of the DANGEROUS storm tide as the cyclone crosses the coast. The sea is likely to steadily rise up to a level which will be significantly above the normal tide, with damaging waves, strong currents and flooding of low-lying areas extending some way inland."

Normal tides in this part of Queensland vary by a few inches, tidal surges of 2 to 3 metres are being predicted. The ABM warning quoted above was issued nine hours before the expected land fall.

Some of the most beautiful and most famous tourist resorts in Australia now lie directly in the path of Cyclone Larry. The tourist mecca of Cairns has a low sea wall, and the main tourist drag and parts of the CBD sit only metres from the wall.

If Cyclone Larry hits at a Category Four or Five, it will likely prove devastating, even a Category Three will send water over the sea wall and into the streets.

Port Douglas also lies in the path of the cyclone. Some of the island resorts were evacuated yesterday, just to be safe.

Charter boats, yachts, fishing boats have been pouring into marinas between Townsville and Cairns over the past 24 hours.

From the Sail World site :

"The fleet of tall ships and major charter vessels which normally moor in Pioneer Bay have come into the marina. They have stripped off all loose objects, removed bimini's and prepared for heavy weather.

"Hinchenbrook Marina at Cardwell is right on the expected track of the cyclone. This marina is partially protected by Hinchenbrook Island but most local boat owners have not moved their vessels to the marina. Instead many owners are taking their boats well up the channel to find shelter amongst the mangroves."

Adrian Kitchin, as quoted on the Sail World site : "We had a lot of trouble convincing clients that they needed to cut short their charter holiday. We've had glorious blues skies and perfect 10-15 knot breezes and the clients just did not understand, until they came back to base and we were able to show them the likely track of the cyclone."