makemylifeasong: Yasi - A Survivor's Testimony

I can honestly say that last night was the most memorable of my life so far. Earlier in the week on Monday night, a small

two cyclone called Anthony blew threw the NQ coastal town of Bowen. Us being north and up the ranges a bit, I’m sure the actual town capped more then wi did but it really was quite small where we were. I slept through the whole thing disappointingly.

OK, so that one was no worry but as we inspected the forecast for ANthony, there was noticed a massive low out to the east, way over the ocean. As hundreds watched, it soon became apparent that this was to be no ordinary storm.

As air dropped into the low and whirled around, concern mounted as the new cyclone, now named Yasi, built itself into a frightening category five system. Drawing ever nearer the coast, predicted to hit sometime on Thursday,] the 3^rd of February, Yasi was soon deemed the largest and most threatening cyclone in four generations.

At first it appeared it would hit right on cairns , but at the last minute she swung south, hitting the coastal town of Cardwell smack on, on Wednesday night.

Here is a short report on the days prior to and the night Yasi came through.

Monday 31^st Jan

Yasi is moving toward the coast. We aren’t really expecting to get too much of it as it’s heading for Cairns, poor people. However we will try to be prepared. Yesterday Adrian, James and the three younger boys pulled down the dilapidated old chookpen out the back.

We have been watching the radar for a few days now. Yasi is massive!

Tuesday 1^st Feb

Picked and packed many many cucumbers today.

We talked about the impeding cyclone all day.

Tomorrow is our day off and we are hoping to go to town.

Wed 2^nd Feb

Well, well,no town for us today. Connor says all the shops are closed and he was sent home from work.

James, Rachael and I spent a few hours in the green house this morning volunteer ‘cos stuff really needs to be done.

The rest of the day was spent in cleaning up for the big wind.

Towards evening it began to rain. All of us were running around in it and almost having a ball.

All the lanterns and torches in the house had been gathered downstairs and sometime after tea, the power died.

It was quite funny actually because we had all sent out heaps of emails in the duration of the day. Now the power was out but the phone was still working and it was amazing how many calls we received to check if we were Ok.

Tea and worship time came and went and we begged not to be sent to bed. At around 9:30 however, the inevitable call came.

Rachael, Aaron and I were sure we were quite brave and so decided to stay upstairs. The others were all bunking down in ‘mum and dad’s room’. We had carried all the mattresses except two down there during the day so us girls would sleep on them and Aaron would sleep on the floor.

We were sure we weren’t tired, so after rigging up some light ma made from head torches hanging from fans and proper light fixtures we settled down fro a few games of Uno.

We soon got kinda tired but still didn’t want to go to sleep so I read to the other two for a while.

Suddenly Rachael suggested rather urgently that we go downstairs ‘cos apparently she had felt the house shake in the already violent wind. So we chickened out and ran down the external stairs to join the rest of the the family in a little sone and concrete room separate from the house where we had already put extra mattresses for ourselves, ‘just in case.’

It was about 10pm at the time and we were kinda getting tired. So we each grabbed an earphone from my iPod and Fernando Ortega sang us to sleep.

We both woke up two hours later and now the wind and rain was amazing. The eye of the storm soon crossed and then the back end arrived.

This was the worst. The wind roared d past the closed window sounding for all the world like a freight train was speeding past right there. The rain pounded against the two big sliding doors, driven by the merciless winds.

Through the noise of the storm you could hear tin flapping, plastic from the greenhouses whipping the air and, and once we heard a tremendous crash.

“What was that?”
“I think it was the roof.” Luke decided, wide eyed.

“I don’t know what it was but what ever it is we can’t do anything about tit now. Go back to sleep.” Said ‘Mum’ who had ben shining a torch out her window towards the cool room. She seemed to think it was something down there.

We almost laughed when she told us to go back to sleep, we knew that was impossible. But we kinda din’t mind. This was exciting was well as scary!

During the night/morning, there were many demanding requests for bathroom facilities. After discussing the matter with ‘Mum’, Rachael and I became the ones to help the kids get to where they could ‘go’. Some were terrified to go outside. “I’ll just wait.” The exclaimed. When they did decide it was urgent, we took them out beside the house which gave partial protection from the ferocious wind and rain.

Once we had to go upstairs to the real toilet. That was exciting. Choosing a time when the wind seemed gentler, we battled our way up the long stair case. What a time! We reached the door, it was blown open and inside was covered in water and leaves. On small stained glass window had been broken somehow and the place was just a mess. After completing our tasks upstairs, we retreated down the back stairs.

In the morning, what devastation we awoke/arose to! So many trees had been snapped, just like they were a child's toy. One of these, a rather large gum tree, had raked the upstairs veranda leafy fingers as though trying to get a grip on the other wise safe house. On it’s way down, this tree also flattened a small garden shed.

The house was structualy undamaged. The only problem, there was a bunch of water which had come down the chimney as a result of the ca coming off in the storm. This water in the firebox caused the house to stink disgustingly for days afterward.

Miracles happened too. An unused solar hot water system mounted on the roof of a visitors toilet/shower block had blown off. When we spotted it in the morning, a couple of inches of it lay under the family car. Angels?

The cucumber greenhouse was not so lucky. From the outside it looked almost Ok. Only one big home in the roof. Step inside however and shreds of ripped plastic lay draped among the bruised an broken cucumber plants. The back wall was also flapping unmerciful providing the kids with a great plaything.

For a while it seemed that we would be able to salvage a few rows, then it was discovered that we could no longer feed them hydroponically due to the power outage so all hope was lost and in a matter of days the once healthy plants transformed into a rotten, stinking mass of moldy, squelchy cucumbers. This provided us with a very undesirable clean up job during the next week.

The other greenhouses, containing tomatoes, capsicum, lettuce, and herbs, were wrecked beyond repair. Buckled and twisted metal frames lay around and between the rotting vegetables and plastic. Not much fun.

In the whole cyclone , it was reported that only one man died and that was of an indirect cause. God really had his hand over the North Queensland coast during the storm. All of our group came out of yasi totally unscathed, and though the crops were destroyed, creating a massive set-back, we were and are very thankful for God’s protecting watch care during the most exciting night of my life.