As Cyclone Yasi tore through the small north Queensland town of Tully, Pat Brauer and her husband huddled together in their bathroom, petrified at the storm's menacing roar.
"The noise it was like a train coming, it was absolutely frightening," she said.
"It was just unbelievable when the windows popped.
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Google map shows the area expected to be hardest hit by Cyclone Yasi as it crossed the coast last night.
"Larry and all the other cyclones, they were nothing compared to this."
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Tully has been decimated by last night's cyclone, with a local councillor estimating up to half the town's homes have lost their roofs.
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Yasi hits north Queensland
An overhead view of what is left of Cardwell. Photo: Paul Crock
Butler Street, Tully’s main street, is littered with debris, roofing iron, glass, wood and other building material.
Roofs, torn off several business, have either landed in the street or been wrapped around poles across the road.
Traffic lights have been bent in half, but the iconic Golden Gumboot, a symbol of Tully’s claim to fame as one of the wettest places in Australia, is still intact.
Seven people have been evacuated from Tully Hospital because of a lack of power in the town.
Cassowary Coast Regional Council mayor Bill Shannon said he wasn’t aware of the patients’ condition.
The highway in Tully was re-opened around midday and the patients were evacuated by road.
Cr Shannon said about a third of the homes in Tully had been damaged.
‘‘One roof in three is off in some parts of town,’’ he said.
Cyclonic winds were so strong that even a billiard table reportedly was blown across the road in Tully Heads, Cr Shannon said.
Locals have begun the clean-up process, but they have a long way to go.
Premier Anna Bligh told Channel Nine the first assessment of the town this morning put 90 per cent of the main street as "extensively damaged".
"We do expect to see Tully experiencing some very, very high levels of damage to buildings, to vegetation and potentially to other infrastructure," Ms Bligh said.
Cassowary Coast councillor Ross Sorbello said early this morning he had heard many reports of homes without roofs, including his own mother's where he had been taking shelter, forcing him, his wife and mother to flee.
"We are talking about a pretty strong brick house that was built in the '70s, so God help us in the morning when we look at some of the older places," he said.
From 11.30pm until 1am Mrs Brauer suffered what she said were the most terrifying moments of her life as winds battered her house, blowing out windows and glass doors while rain brought in water five centimetres deep.
Although the frame and roof of the house survived the storm, much of the property inside the house has been destroyed.
Surveying the damage this morning Mrs Brauer burst into tears.
"You should just see it, mate; there's nothing left, it's just devastating," she said.
"I wish I could take a photo for you; you wouldn't believe it."
On her street her neighbour's cane field had been stripped by the storm and a garden shed had been blown away.
Bulgun Road, on the outskirts of Tully, now seems totally unrecognisable to her.
"Big trees have just been ripped out of the ground and they've just disappeared," she said.
She and her husband have not been able to make it into the centre of Tully to see how the cyclone affected the town.
But they are pleased their children were able to find safety - her son in a underground room in Tully and their Innisfail daughter in Townsville.
The couple retained mobile coverage throughout the storm and were kept up to date by Mrs Bauer's sister-in-law in Brisbane who provided weather updates.
"That was the best thing: having the mobile phone and her talking to us," she said.
Cr Sorbello said the devastation was widespread.
"If you look around there are houses everywhere you can see with part of their roof off or all of their roof off," he told the Nine Network this morning.
"If you look at the trees, all there are are sticks. The leaves are gone."
He said that even in the dark, a very brief look outside as the eye passed over, told him the devastation would be vast.
"It is just a scene of mass devastation," he said. "[Cyclone] Larry was a boy compared to this."
He said people were calling him to recount their losses.
"People are calling up telling me they've got roofs off, one farmer said he had a great big shed blow away," he said.
Another resident, Stephanie Grimaz said houses in her street had been ripped apart.
"The flat from across the street is in our front yard and we can see other houses which have just been destroyed," she told AAP.
"There are sheets of iron everywhere, the streets are just full of debris."
Speaking during the eye of the storm, Ms Grimaz said the winds had been terrifying.
"We live in a pretty solid concrete house and even that was trembling," she said.
At Bilyana, south of Tully, several buildings have been damaged, the ABC reported.
"I think all the roof's gone. I could hear it all popping off," one resident, identified only as Rae, told the ABC.
- with AAP
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