Live coverage: Cyclone Yasi – Window of opportunity for evacuating will close in three hours

By Paul Colgan, Owen Vaughan, and Helen Davidson, news.com.au
February 02, 2011 9.10am Cairns Mayor Val Schier says the city could see Cyclone Tracy-like scenes when monster Cyclone Yasi hits, and anyone who decides to stay in homes in unsafe areas are on their own. “We look to what happened with Cyclone Tracy where people ended up under mattresses in bathrooms and that may be the situation here …” she told ABC TV. “In the end if people want to stay, they’re taking responsibility for their own life,” she said. She said stretched emergency services could not be diverted from critical tasks if people made the wrong decision to stay in unsafe areas. 9.30am Wind gusts are reaching 140km/h at Willis Island off the coast of Queensland. The tiny island is in the direct path of the cyclone and is home to a Bureau of Meteorology weather station. Three bureau staff have been evacuated. 9.49am NASA reports Cyclone Yasi is creating 11.5m waves in the Coral Sea. “Infrared imagery suggests that the storm appears to fill up most of the Coral Sea, and provided scientists with a 10 nautical mile-wide eye measurement of the storm. ” 9.57am Federal MP Bob Katter says the north Queensland city of Innisfail is on tenterhooks ahead of Cyclone Yasi with many residents still traumatised by Cyclone Larry, describing the town as dark and eerie. “The sky is dark, uniformly dark and it’s very, very distinctively cyclonic,” he told ABC Radio. “There’s a lot of people who came out of Cyclone Larry very badly damaged psychologically. “To have to be hit again is really, really terrible.” Due to travel inland to his Charters Towers home today the MP says he hopes homes re-built since Cyclone Larry will be better able to withstand Yasi. 10.04am A weather watcher in Cairns reported on Twitter that the Bureau of Meteorology observation post on Willis Island may have been destroyed. They are being slammed by the cyclone now, and no data has been reported for 40 minutes. You can see a radar image here. 10.11am Premier Anna Bligh says in a press conference that winds of up to 280km/h are expected. She says “now is the time for people prepare themselves and their children and their families mentally.” Emergency services are on alert to respond in the aftermath of the storm.

Optus and Telstra are working to have people on the ground as soon as possible after the event to restore telecommunications.
There is a portable hospital facility in Townsville and another in Darwin. Both are on alert.
500 police officers are on alert to go into the region over the next three days as the storm subsides.

10.16am Anna Bligh advises the tidal storm surges will be worse on the southern side of where the cyclone falls. Councils are working with “worst case scenario” mapping. Ian Stewart urged people to evacuate from danger areas as soon as possible. “The closer you are, the longer the period of danger for you.” 10.20am Ian Stewart urges people to prepare themselves and their neighbours as it will take 24 hours for the conditions to return to normal. He said people should prepare for the fact that “the roofs of the houses may lift off.” The eye of the cyclone is 35km in diametre, travelling at 30km/h so will take at least an hour to pass. Ms Bligh urges people not to go outside during that time as the storm will return with equal intensity. It will be “impossible for emergency services to respond” during that 24 hour period because they need to be safe as well. 10.24am Anna Bligh says the next 24 hours “will be terrifying”. Ian Stewart says “we haven’t forgotten” the smaller towns, even though much of the talk has been about the large population centres. The most at risk areas are between Cairns and Cardwell. 700mm of rain, 280km/h winds and 2m storm surges will hit around 10pm tonight. 10.34am Ms Bligh said the ferocity of the storm might bring down transmission towers, meaning electricity could be lost in parts of regional Queensland that aren’t even affected by the cyclone. Ergo Energy is planning for anywhere between 150,000 and 200,000 people losing power. “They expect that we could see the impact come as far south as Mackay in relation to electricity supply,” she said. 10.43am The window of opportunity for evacuating will close in around three hours. Cairns hospital is already empty after staging the largest hospital evacuation in Australian history. Cairns airport will close at 10am local time.