Well, Yasi hit last night. I think all of Queensland stayed up to watch and hope. The big towns of Far North Queensland but there are certainly little towns that copped it. Mission Beach, that perfect, beautiful, dreamy little town has been hammered. Carwell, hammered. Tully is looking at major destruction of at least 1/3, likely 1/2 of all the structures in town. We stay warm and dry and muggy. The statistic that blew my mind was the one where they said Yasi generated enough power in a day to power the entire world for a year!
It is inevitable that comparisons will be drawn between Katrina and Yasi. I think that as storms themselves they were fairly comparable but the most obvious difference is the difference in the loss of life. Katrina lost 1800+ lives and Yasi is actually up a few lives. Three babies were born. two in Innisfail and one in an evacuation shelter in Cairns. The parents are all resisting the obvious and are not naming their babies 'Yasi', although I think I would have. The biggest difference that I see is the evacuation procedures. New Orleans just wasn't evacuated in time! That and it's a bigger city, but I think that there would be some loss of life here if towns like Carwell and Mission Beach weren't almost totally deserted by the time the cyclone hit. Cairns had completely airlifted the entire Cairns Base Hospital, leaving only ER staff.
I was wavering in regards to Anna Bligh, but she has redeemed herself. She was brilliant in the last few days. She got less sleep than all of us. She spoke directly to us all and never had to read off notes. She deferred to people who knew more when she needed to. There is a fleet of helicopters out of harms way but still waiting to help.
I am proud of how this was handled. I am sorry that the destruction was so severe. I am sorry bananas will cost $20 a kilo for about 3 years. I am amazed that Queensland got out of this without losing a life.....yet.
But most of all, I am amazed that they didn't call that little girl Yasi
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