Wednesday, February 2, 2011

From the San Francisco Chronicle on the Australian Cyclone

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(Updates with comment from Bligh in fourth paragraph; resort owner in seventh paragraph.)

Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Tropical Cyclone Yasi, packing winds stronger than those from Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans, struck Australia's northeast coast early today, lashing communities with the force of a storm described by authorities as the largest in the nation's history.

Yasi hit shore as a Category 5 storm about 165 kilometers (103 miles) south of Cairns in Mission Beach, a resort town of about 3,000 people, battering Queensland state's coast with wind gusts of as much as 290 kilometers per hour, the Bureau of Meteorology said. The cyclone has been downgraded to Category 2 and continues to weaken, according to the bureau's website.

Though the towns of Mission Beach, Tully and Innisfail suffered the worst damage, larger population areas such as Cairns and Townsville escaped the brunt of the storm, authorities said. Yasi also ripped a path through key sugarcane growing areas in the state.

"We certainly seem to have areas like Cairns with serious damage to vegetation, trees and roofs," Premier Anna Bligh told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio, adding she was thankful the cyclone didn't hit land at a major population center and that no deaths or injuries had been reported. "Some of the towns worst affected are smaller and more remote places."

Sugar futures surged to a 30-year high in London. Australia's dollar fell from almost a one-month high, trading at $1.0068 as of 11:45 a.m. in New York, down from $1.0111 the previous day when it touched $1.0149.

Threat to Life

The cyclone, coming just weeks after the state capital, Brisbane, was hit by the worst flooding since 1974, was "likely to be more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations," according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

"Hills have been stripped of vegetation and I have a power line lying on the ground right outside the window," said Rhonda Murdoch, owner of Montage Beach Apartments at Mission Beach. "The wind was roaring, whistling and we could hear crashing outside. It looks like a war zone."

More than 173,500 people have lost power, schools and airports are closed and military forces were used to airlift 200 hospital patients to Brisbane about 1,500 kilometers to the south.

The cyclone will last as long as three days and may still be a category 1 storm, defined by winds of up to 125 kilometers an hour, by Feb. 4, when it may reach Mt. Isa about 900 kilometers inland, Bligh said. The core will take four hours to pass, according to the weather bureau.

Bananas, Sugarcane

Yasi is more severe than Category 4 Cyclone Larry, which wiped out most of Australia's banana crop and devastated sugar cane fields almost five years ago. Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in Aug. 2005, had winds of as much as 280 kilometers per hour.

"This was terrifying, much worse than Larry," said Nicholas Pervan who has 52 people staying at his Codge Lodge Backpackers Resort in Innisfail, which has a population of about 9,000. "Everyone's well and accounted for, but we're all a bit shaken. It's not light enough yet to assess the damage."

Yasi will weaken as it moves in a west-southwesterly direction towards the Georgetown area in the state's north, the weather bureau said on its website.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who has provided help to Queensland from the nation's military, said Yasi is the worst cyclone Australia has seen.

Military Support

"The people of Australia will be there to help the people of far North Queensland through," Gillard told reporters in Canberra yesterday. "As the cyclone passes through and the hours that follow afterwards, arrangements are already being made to make available assets from our Australian Defence Force."

Some 10,680 people are being sheltered in more than 20 evacuation centers along the coast to avoid a storm surge that is forecast to trigger flooding, Bligh said.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/02/02/bloomberg1376-LFZUCA1A1I4H01-2S22V2RQ1EV183C1QHR2DHNR68.DTL#ixzz1CqqG9Y00
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1 comments:

Pr Mark Henderson said...

Hi Pr Matt,

Initial reports here are that no lives have been lost and the damage is not as bad as expected, although still considerable, especially to the banana crops and sugar mills which form the economic backbone of the area. We are certainly hoping and praying that this is indeed so. It seems the eye of the cyclone passed over Mission Beach and Tully, which are less populated than the cities of Cairns and Townsville, which were both prearing for the worst. Of course, coming on top of the recent floods, this is quite a blow for people's morale and the question of theodicy has already been raised by Premier Bligh in lay terms. The LCA magazine, 'The Lutheran', is going with an article on that topic next issue. There are several LCA congregations in this area, including Cairns, Townsville, Ingham and the indigenous community at Hope Vale, which was established as a mission in the late 19th century. As you know, this is all far to the north of where I am in Toowoomba; Queensland is a big state, bigger than Texas, and with a big heart to match!

February 2, 2011 8:19 PM

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