After about 72 hours without power, our power came back on last night. When we left at 4pm we didn't have it, and when we got home at 10 (after having dinner at my parents' place) it was back on. As we were driving over the motorway on the way home, we saw the areas between the motorway & Hervey Range Rd had more streetlights on than the previous nights. We actually cheered... then got sad when we got closer to home and our streetlights were off. And then cheered again when we got home and our lights were back on! I was almost disappointed however... after two nights of sleeping in our loungeroom (the bedroom has no windows and was far too hot) with the back doors closed (due to our screen doors not latching, we had to leave the glass doors closed during the night), I'd finally had the bright idea of duct-taping the screen doors shut so we could open the glass doors while we slept. Well, turned out we didn't need that idea. Which is both an unfortunate and fortunate thing, I guess.
Townsville has suffered the most damage I've ever seen. On top of what I mentioned in my last post, the Strand had sand all the way up the foreshore, across the road and into the front yards of the properties over the road (and down the streets perpendicular to the beach). The wind turbine on the Strand was ripped off its foundation. But it's nothing on Cardwell, Tully and Tully Heads. Besser block houses half-collapsed and crumbling. Besser block! Anything flimsier had no chance. I've seen pictures of houses where only a quarter of the house remains, and the rest of it is literally gone except the stumps. These are houses that not only had the wind against them, but were so close to the beach that the storm surge flooded them and waves pounded them until they completely fell apart then washed away. I don't think anybody will be building so close to the beach up there ever again.
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