As if the Aussies weren't having enough tragedy with major flooding covering a huge portion of the country. Now they are set to get SLAMMED with a Cat 5 cyclone. This will make landfall in the area where Shorty lives. This is BAD NEWS!

Here's a news story about the storm..

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/yasi-may-be-worst-storm-in-generations-20110202-1acm6.html

Shorty be safe! And get out of the way of that monster. I'm worried about you mate!





Rick Gelinas

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Rick Gelinas

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Shorty, I know that the authorities are going to be switching the power off shortly in North Queensland, so if you have power and communications still working, I just want you to know that Marilyn, Jim, Charntelle and myself are thinking of you and Delia. Also I was down in Brisbane today with a group of carpet cleaners. They asked me to pass on to you and your other carpet cleaning mates up in Far North Queensland their concern for you and your families. They were genuinely concerned for you.

I know you are a veteran of Cyclones, but this is a monster, Category 5 and 500kms across, wow.

My brother in law got hit with that Cyclone Anthony 3 days ago when it hit below you in Bowen. It was only Cat 2, 150 km winds, but he said that his glass windows were bowing inwards even at that wind speed. But winds in your area heading towards 300km per hour, ouch.I see that some in Innisfail are bunking down in the Bank vault. News just said that our main cyclone warning station in the Coral Sea, Willis Island was wiped out. The Queensland Premier has just given a news briefing and the Premier is calling it a catastrophic cyclone.
Rick, I know that Far North Queensland is a long way from where you are, but you might like to know that there are a lot of carpet cleaners in that area using your Releasit DS over in that area.

All the best Shorty!

Gary Bethel

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/yasi/8205337/cyclone-yasi-to-hit-coast-one-hour-later





Rick Gelinas

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Wow that video Rick brings back a lot of memories of a couple of years ago with Hurrican Ike. Ike was not nearly that big and I know first hand what damage it caused since the eye went right over my house.

We will certainly keep Shorty in our prayers.

Shorty was able to contact me in the last hour and said that Delia and himself came through Yasi ok. Rough night though. 175,000 homes out of power.
Ground zero was at Mission Beach and Tully which is about about 1 1/4 hours south of where Shorty
lives.A few reports filtering through are saying that Tully has received extensive damage to 90% of the buildings in town.They are expecting a metre of rain in the district today.
So far the authorities are saying no deaths but one baby born in one of the evacuation centers.

Every one is saying due to much planning, no deaths known to authorities at this stage after such a massive cyclone.
The other amazing thing with this cyclone is that Yasi has actually gone over the Great Dividing Range and is now heading into the outback. That has never happened before as the Great Divide which has the two highest mountains in Queensland, always breaks up cyclones. Not this time.It did break Yasi down to a cat 3.

But according to Shorty, all and all North Queensland has come through this fairly well.

Gary.

Gary I've been watching this in the news and it looks like Cairns came through better than it could have been. But that's all relative. Anytime a storm of this magnitude makes landfall the aftermath is going to make a deep impact (I've seen enough hurricane damage to appreciate that). And you guys were already dealing with so much flooding - this cyclone on top of everything else is insane.

There has been unusual weather all over the planet recently - with stronger winter storms in the northern hemisphere than we're accustomed to. According to the EPA's website - "Human-induced climate change has the potential to alter the prevalence and severity of extremes such as heat waves, cold waves, storms, floods and droughts." http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/extreme.html

My heart goes out to all of you in the affected areas. Hang in there! And if you speak with Shorty - please tell him I said hello.








Rick Gelinas

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/cyclone-yasi/gallery.htm





Rick Gelinas

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