Having left Ravenshoe after saying goodbye to our new friends we pulled into Cairns for a short layover that turned into a five night stay which would have been a six night stay except the Salvos were in dire need of someone to take over the preparation of breakfasts and lunches for the people of Tully Heads, many of whom are sleeping on the floor in their own home or with neighbours or friends that havn't been as badly damaged. There are some who have not had a hot shower since the cyclone hit so portable toilets, showers and laundry buildings are just going up in the community centre grounds where we were set up. Basic sleeping quaters will be next but no kitchens so preparation of food continues to be an ongoing problem.
The whole coast from Mission Beach to Cardwell (we haven't seen or heard what its like below Cardwell) has been severly affected by the cyclone. The eye of the cyclone was some 70klms wide which is why we got it so bad at Ravenshoe but places like Herberton, Atherton and Mareeba didn't.
The fact that we were going south plus we had our own accomodation with us meant that we could fill the gap needed at this time. Three weeks down the track from Yasi hitting land meant that many people are now back at work, children are now back at school so numbers to do the relief work had depleted badly.
We had a hand over on Tuesday and hit the ground running on Wednesday morning. Breakfasts were not hard as it was just a simple breakfast of cereal, toast. fruit,tea and coffee. Numbers were getting less as each day goes by so we only had to cater for 20 give or take a few on each day. Lunch was the main meal of the day for people. The Community Centre had a small kitchen we could use plus we had a large BBQ for cooking the meats. Refrigeration of food was a problem as power was intermitant at best. Thursday we had no power all day so thankfully there was a generator we could use to keep refridgerators going. We had huge eskies full of bottled water as town water is still unsafe to drink. The heat and the humidity was unbearable especially for Ken as he was doing the BBQ. We fed about 80 on Wednesday, about 120 on the Thursday as there was a meeting to keep people up to date on what was happening, and Friday there was about 60 odd.
Friday was the last day The Salvation Army were going to provide meals. The initial disaster phase was now moving into recovery phase and so the local Rotary Club were going to organise locals to keep the meals going if possible each day or if not that often then on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Many are still doing it tough. You hear lots of sad stories, one 80 year old lady said to me that for the first four nights after the cyclone she slept in her car because her two little dogs couldn't stay with her in the emergency centre. Just yesterday one man who had been up at his daughters place at Walkamin came down to Tully Heads for the first time to see what had happened to his house and when he came in he was shell shocked. He'd lost everything. He couldn't think straight, he didn't know what to do or where to go and thankfully someone sent him to the community centre where he could get some help and some guidance.
There are some areas where people have yet to be allowed home. Many homes were built using
asbestos and so no one is allowed into those areas until it has been disposed of properly. This all compounds the problems people are facing and they are enourmous problems. Despite what they have gone through there are those who still have their sense of humour. For example as you drive into Tully Heads someone has got hold of something to make a sign with and on the front lawn the sign reads "Thank you Yasi for landscaping my garden" and another on the main road through Tully read "For sale, A renovator's delight." and yes the house was badly damaged.
The storm suge that occurred all along the coast caused untold damage and there are no words that can describe what happened. As you drive along houses are just shells of their former glory and it didn't matter whether they were someones holiday cottage or someones dream retirement home. Roofs gone, doors gone, windows gone and even internal walls all gone along with every piece of furniture that was in the house. Their is just nothing left and just like a fire a cyclone can be eratic and beside one home that is completly destroyed is another that has minimal damage. There are streets especially those along the water front that have been classified as unsafe and they are cordoned off as a "NO GO" zone. They will all have to be demolished.
The beach tells its own story of how forceful the winds and waves were. The road had been totally covered in sand and bulldozers have scraped it clean so the road is now passable. You can't see a blade of grass where the picnic areas were and the beach is a real mess. Trees are strewn all over the beach and in the water. The trees that are still standing where the grass would have been all have their roots exposed and should another bad storm come through they too will probably fall over. This too is a "NO GO" area
Very few people have been able to salvage anything. One chap found a cross that his deceased mother had given him and his glasses he found in the neighbours yard. You would think he won the lottery.
The boats at Cardell that were all slammed against each other have almost all been lifted high and dry but Oh what a mess they are. This is a very popular retirement area and as you would have seen on TV some of these boats were valued well over a million dollars and others were just tinnies or small runabouts regardless of their value they are all unusable and unsafe.
We knew things would be bad down here we just couldn't imagine the devastation that we have seen. The closer we got to Tully the worse things got untill what we saw was like someone had set off a Napalm bomb. The countryside is without leaf cover on every tree and I mean every tree. Some of the local native trees have been stripped of their bark and all that's left is the tree and bare branches. Trees are snapped in half or simply reefed right out of the ground. Debri is caught high up in the branches as is timber from homes, pieces of tin crumbled like you would a piece of alfoil. When you look at the skyline all you now see are bare trees. How long it will take to regrow no one knows. It is quite eerie driving through this country side.
Ken's cousin Stan and Connie have been up here going from door to door with aid to people help get through this crisis and last night we brought our van up to where they are staying so we were able to spend a couple of hours chatting to them. It is our intention to head off from here today. We are going to head south and depending on roads and weather conditions we will cross over and head south west to south Australia.
We have travelled south as far as Ayr and Home Hill tonight. We are at the Home Hill Comfort Stop. This is a little unusual as this area runs parallel to the main st and you actually park in the street. There are free hot showers as you cannot use a generator and they are really clean which is nice.
As we have travelled today the further away from the cyclone affected area the less the damage. It is good to see trees with leaves on.
We will add photos later
That's it for now. I will blog again soon.
love to one and all
Ken and Lyn.
No comments:
Post a Comment