Thought and prayers

[srobb]

for those of our members in Australia. Just saw on the web where Cyclone Larry hit on the northeastern shore. Luckily there have been no deaths reported and no serious injuries. Those members that are down under, please report in and let us know you are alright.

[jar_e]

I echo those thoughts and prayers...hopefully all is well for everybody effected by it.

[Lara]

I hope we hear from them soon. I can't tell from the news if any of the bad weather hit the Sydney area. It sounds that most of it was north and east in Queensland.

My prayers and hopes are that all are okay. Peter, I will be anxiously waiting to hear from you.

[Peter_AUS]

I don't think there are any members that live where that happened, think of the point of the top east of Australia and then move down the map on the coast about 3 inches, that is approximately where it hit.

Right near the top third of the Great Barrier Reef as well. 1 in three buildings have been damaged to some degree to extensive destruction of properties.

The biggest probelems are lack of water supply, no electricity, phones down all over the place and will be that way for months by the sound of it. All resources are in full swing and supplies arriving today and our Prime Minister is arriving there tomorrow to review what is needed by the Fedral Government support areas. We have been through this sort of thing before in 1974 when Darwin was hit by Cyclone Tracy and completely devostated much like New Orleans was, except Darwin is very isolated and help is only available by Air or Sea, probably New Orleans was similar although, think of Northern Nevarda (I think that is pretty isolated desert area in USA), and then getting stuff from LA to that sort of area, huge difficulties.

There is another Cyclone tracking along a similar path as Cyclone Larry although might be a little further south and if it hits there or Cairns a little above where Larry hit, then that is going to be a huge problem in those areas as well.

What it has done is nock out the whole of the Banana, Sugan Cane Industries of that area, which has been totally wiped out and I mean, totally, nothing is standing crop wise and it is going to take about 2 - 3 years to even get that back on track, so up goes the prices on bananas and sugar I am sure. It is also essentially not a young person area so there are a lot of people who are elderly living there, in buildings that aren't young either I'm sure everyone will know what I mean by that. A bit like stick houses up against the Big Bad Wolf. Winds of up to 300 Kms an hour for about 5 hours in total hit that area.

Me and the rest of PR.com members are I would believe generally as far away from that sort of devestation that we can only wonder what it would be like. I think there is one member who lives in Townsville who might have been on the edge of the cyclone but until they get their phones and electricity back in the areas we can only hope. I do know that there are no reported deaths or missing people. The only injuries have been minor cuts, abrasions and broken limbs, but that is probably from the idiot factor mostly. You know the idiots that get out there to see what its like then get hit with flying debrie and complain that they got hurt. There is also the children that get out there and swim in the rushing water drains and get sucked into them as well which I can't understand why anyone in their right minds would do.

If you think of Sydney being like LA and Northern Queensland being like Florida, even though LA and Florida are on similar logitudes, Sydney is as far away from Florida as NY is only NY is like where Far North Queensland is and Sydney is where Florida is, just the weathers are reversed. Does that make sense.


Will let you know if I hear from anyone. I know Toby is safe, they live inland South of Sydney, in Canberra Australias Capital City which is surrounded by mountains. Others that I have seen online, are south of me, or in Brisbane, which is nearly 1,000km south of where the Cyclone hit which is 1,000km north of Sydney, and the rest are either in Melbourne 1,300kms south of Sydney or Perth 5,000km West of Sydney on the other side of the continent. That might give you some perspective to where the cyclone hit, probably about 2,500 kms north of Sydney a good 2 1/2 days drive from here.

Thanks everyone for thinking of us as well.

[srobb]

Peter, it is good to hear from you. I could not remember where exactly you were and I knew there were other PR members from down under. Although I am glad you are far away from everything, I still have concerns for those affected.

I thought is was interesting that there have been no deaths reported. I believe I remember them saying that was because of the amoutn of time they had to alert those in the path of Cyclone Larry.

[Peter_AUS]

Far North Queensland is not an overly populated area, where the Cyclone hit the population is about 8,000 people and at least half of those are employed in the Banana and Sugar Cane Industry. The Cyclone has wiped out 90% of the Banana production for Australia which is very significant as we have bans on imported Bananas, so it would seem we are going without Bananas for the next 2 years most likely. I'm not sure how much of Australia's production of Sugar Cane is located there, but now >4,000 people have lost their jobs.

All resources available have been/are being moved into the area and I am sure that things will get back to near normal living wise fairly quickly. What started as a Food Line for the volunteers has developed quickly into a Soup Kitchen (although no soup is apparent), more like a giant BBQ. Qantas is also flying in 8,000 meals a day to the area as well, the Army has arrived and are restoring services as quickly as possible. They are also flying in about 8,000 Tarpaulins as well to cover the roofs which is now soaking wet with all the rain, so possessions are being destroyed so they need to cover as many roofs as possible as quickly as possible.

People are living in their cars, or with neighbours. One of the local Policeman there, had just finished renovating his house and the roof or the service station across the road lived and wiped out his house completely, what a shame.

At present they are estimating approximately $1 Billion in damages, but I think that will increase over time. Insurance claims are going in very quickly and hopefully for the people they will be processed quickly which I believe they will.

Aussies are a pretty resilient lot, this is a bit like Water off a Ducks Back, and they are already moving on. Evacuation is/was not really an option as due to the location there is really nowhere to go, although there were some that moved to higher ground. Because of the early warning systems in place, everything that could be done was done, buildings are supposed to be built to Cyclonic standards, but there are many homes there that would be close to 60-100 years old and they obviously wouldn't be built that way.

There are going to be a lot of businesses go to the wall because of this, but hopefully Financial Institutions will back them and keep them viable which is very important for the area. The other thing that is going to suffer heavily is Tourism as well, they usually get a lot of backpackers up there, as it is close to the Barrier Reef and Rain Forest areas as well. They usually work there as well during their travels too.

Now we are waiting to see what happens with the other one and where they might hit, everyone is hoping that it will move off up north and into the Timor Sea which is up above Cape York and near Indonesia which will then probably turn into a tropical rain storm and not cause any damage (hopefully).

No deaths is a good thing, all to do with preparation, although their could have been from some of the stories that are coming out.