FNQ team members: all the best for tonight

Best wishes from WA for all those in the area which will be touched by Yasi, we hope you, your families and friends get safely through tonight and the next few days.

Hope you guyz R all ok!!!!!!!

What a bloody relief to hear that the damage wasn't as bad and so far no loss of life...to date.
But haven't some of our media people gone a bit overboard with reporting rubbish data, using good old septic terminologies just to make a story look and sound rather dramatic.
Was a relief to see Ch2 24 hours and reporters say “people are battening down hatches, instead of the commercial channels mob throwing the words “bunkering and hunkering" around with great abandon ( War correspondent words left over from the Gulf war)
Commercial stations even had one boof head standing on a street with sheets of iron whistling past, just rabbiting on with no thoughts of his own or his camera crew safety.

Thanks for all the support offered by you guys, greatly appreciated.

I decided to get out of Innisfail as soon as it went to Cat 5 and advice from a friend in the BoM advised getting out as the storm surge predictions were frightening if the eye passed over Innisfail. As I live in a ground level house close to the river didn't take much to make the decision to leave.
Went to friend in Malanda even though we wwere still going to get hit, at least we wouldn't drown up there.
Luckily the eye deviated to the south enough to not cause too much damage were we were, lots of trees down but that's about all.
The trip back to Innisfail on the Palmerston Hwy was exciting. Power line over the road at Milla Milla but not active thank god, but when we got to the rain forest the hwy was blocked by hundreds of trees. As the traffic built there were a few who had chainsaws, so we leap-frogged each other down the mountain, cutting and clearing a path. Apart from one stuck up prick in a range rover &x28; rego REWARD&x29; who sat in his car with the aircon on waiting for everyone else to clear the way. Pox on you DH. Everyone else were fantastic helping clear the way. Usually an hour trip took over 4.
Was expecting Innisfail to have heaps of damage but no. Lots of trees down but relatively unscathed. When we got to our house, it was just as we had left it. Bit of water got in through the louvers that's it.
Still had phones but no power. The Ergon guys had us connected again by 5pm. Fantastic effort. Innisfail &x28;and more so Cairns&x29; ducked a big bullet for sure, as the eye deviated to the south just before landfall. My favourite sailing beach, Kurrimine, got hammered and hope to get down there in the next few days to check out the damage there. Most of the small coastal communities were evacuated beforehand which would be a major reason for the amazing survival and injury rate.
Thanks again for the concern. Cheers

Lyn and Herby,made it thru with no problems except loss of power and phone.
Our landline internet is still down and so is our phone. Our mobile which is on telstra will receive text but will not reply or make new calls. Lucky we have a Virgin dongle which works fine.
We have been living out of our Engal which we filled with coke and beer and have been eating our baked beans straight out of the can.

Rossco....good move to move out like you did.

All good here Good to see you're Ok Rossco and had enough sense to high tail it, got word from Luca and Sailpilot they're all good too

Big mob of thanks for the texts, phone calls and emails from all the GPSTC'ers that had my number, and the posts here, what a great community

Very little damage here in Cairns, mainly trees and cheap garden sheds etc. I will say I've been through my fair share of these over the years but this is the first time I was more than a little worried, I knew that was expected if it hit Cairns. My biggest worry by far was the fact my wife and I were both on duty, she works in aged care, I didn't want to be separated even though our work paces are bullet proof. Otherwise like Rossco I would have been long gone. The good thing was she had off duty work mates roll up to work with their family's so she could join my son and me. I did the same, worked the day between my nights so the day crew could go home.

My house is timber, on the side of a hill and surrounded by trees. I was expecting it to get a flogging but it's as good as gold thanks to the cyclone going south so the wind here came from the west, which put a mountain between it and home, Larry was the same. I've had trees on my roof before and days of work so all good

No power (phone or mobile) here till about 11pm last night, no prob just plugged my little Honda camp generator into the fridge and a fluro light, all my cooking is gas, so hot food and cold rums

Yorkey's rigging area and beach, bugger all damage really