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One of the most powerful storms ever recorded in Australia pulled houses apart and snapped power poles as it ripped across flood—sodden Queensland state on Thursday but didn’t kill anyone.
Officials had issued days of increasingly dire warnings and said lives were spared because people followed instructions to flee to evacuation centers or bunker themselves at home in dozens of cities and towns in Cyclone Yasi’s path on the far northeast coast.
Hundreds of houses were destroyed or seriously damaged, and homes of thousands more people would be barely livable until the wreckage was cleared, officials said.
Ferocious winds, flood-inducing rain, tidal surges
The storm was as powerful as forecasters predicted - carrying ferocious winds up to 170 mph (280 kph) at the core, flood—inducing rain and tidal surges that sent waves crashing ashore two blocks into seaside towns.
But it wasn’t as deadly as expected, though several small towns directly in Yasi’s path were devastated, hundreds of millions of dollars of banana and sugarcane crops shredded and power to more than 180,000 homes severed.
Verna Kohn huddled with her husband, daughter and two granddaughters in her home in Tully as the storm roared overhead when the roof sheeting began to tear free. They fled to a small downstairs room and spent the night sitting in a tight cluster on a bed of pillows and listening to the radio, praying the house would hold up.
“It was eerie and whistling and whirling and popping and girls screaming,” Ms. Kohn recalled Thursday as she stood inside her sodden home.
Mattresses, carpet, floral curtains, hand-sewn quilts drenched
Everything was drenched- mattresses, the carpet, floral curtains, stacks of hand—sewn quilts she’d spent years crafting. On the ground floor, water dripped through the ceiling into saucepans and buckets scattered about. Half her roof had been torn away, and windows were ripped off. A neighbor’s palm tree lay across her yard.
Yasi crossed the coast around midnight with the most—destructive category 5 rating, but the swirling storm immediately began weakening once it was over land. Still, it was strong enough late Thursday to hold a category 1 cyclone rating some 500 miles (800 kilometers) inland, where it was threatening to cause flooding in the Outback town of Mount Isa.
The disaster zone was north of Australia’s worst flooding in decades, which swamped an area in Queensland state the size and Germany and France combined and killed 35 people during weeks of high water up until last month.
But the storm added to the state’s woes, and was sure to add substantially to the estimated $5.6 billion in damage since late November.
Officials had issued days of increasingly dire warnings and said lives were spared because people followed instructions to flee to evacuation centers or bunker themselves at home in dozens of cities and towns in Cyclone Yasi’s path on the far northeast coast.
Hundreds of houses were destroyed or seriously damaged, and homes of thousands more people would be barely livable until the wreckage was cleared, officials said.
Ferocious winds, flood-inducing rain, tidal surges
The storm was as powerful as forecasters predicted - carrying ferocious winds up to 170 mph (280 kph) at the core, flood—inducing rain and tidal surges that sent waves crashing ashore two blocks into seaside towns.
But it wasn’t as deadly as expected, though several small towns directly in Yasi’s path were devastated, hundreds of millions of dollars of banana and sugarcane crops shredded and power to more than 180,000 homes severed.
Verna Kohn huddled with her husband, daughter and two granddaughters in her home in Tully as the storm roared overhead when the roof sheeting began to tear free. They fled to a small downstairs room and spent the night sitting in a tight cluster on a bed of pillows and listening to the radio, praying the house would hold up.
“It was eerie and whistling and whirling and popping and girls screaming,” Ms. Kohn recalled Thursday as she stood inside her sodden home.
Mattresses, carpet, floral curtains, hand-sewn quilts drenched
Everything was drenched- mattresses, the carpet, floral curtains, stacks of hand—sewn quilts she’d spent years crafting. On the ground floor, water dripped through the ceiling into saucepans and buckets scattered about. Half her roof had been torn away, and windows were ripped off. A neighbor’s palm tree lay across her yard.
Yasi crossed the coast around midnight with the most—destructive category 5 rating, but the swirling storm immediately began weakening once it was over land. Still, it was strong enough late Thursday to hold a category 1 cyclone rating some 500 miles (800 kilometers) inland, where it was threatening to cause flooding in the Outback town of Mount Isa.
The disaster zone was north of Australia’s worst flooding in decades, which swamped an area in Queensland state the size and Germany and France combined and killed 35 people during weeks of high water up until last month.
But the storm added to the state’s woes, and was sure to add substantially to the estimated $5.6 billion in damage since late November.