Heavily pregnant Leanne, 25, her husband and their 15-month-old son planned to ride out Cyclone Larry in their Innisfail house.
But when Larry was upgraded to a category-four storm, the family evacuated, returning home to find the roof and trusses of their newly-renovated home had been ripped off in the storm.
Follow this family's struggle to rebuild their lives here, in Leanne's online diary.
Friday, March 31, 5pm:
Today I found out that our beautiful, 40-year-old timber floors of our house can't be salvaged. It is terrible news and so frustrating because if our insurance company SunCorp had organised the tarps to cover what is left of our house at the start of the week — when they said they would! — then they could have been saved.
I've been ringing SunCorp all week but I got nowhere. So finally today I rang the local office and they sent someone round straight away, but it was too late.
They told us last Monday that it would be done in two days and that was 10 days ago!
We could have put the tarps up ourselves that Tuesday when all our friends came over to help us clean up. Some of them are qualified builders and they offered, but we said: 'No, the insurance company have organised it, it's fine.'
We sold our last house with tiled floors and bought this house because it had those beautiful floors. It's so frustrating — they are irreplaceable. We had re-polished half of them. It was such a lot of work.
The insurance money will cover it, but I am not even sure that you can get the kind of wood now. It's all just pine. It must be $40,000 worth of wood lost, and for no good reason.
And now I don’t know what to do. Is it worth tarping the house and getting a second opinion?
But at least the power came back on today. When I saw the electricity guy coming, I could have kissed him! At least we have that.
Wednesday, March 29, 8.30pm:
The best memory I have of Cyclone Larry is the night my husband and some of his mates cut a track with their chainsaws through the Palmerston Highway.
We were driving back to Innisfail from Atherton Tablelands the Monday the cyclone hit and I was worried we wouldn't make it through the Palmerston Highway as it runs through rainforest. And I was right. There were trees covering the entire road.
But we'd bumped into from friends from Tully on the highway and one of them had a chainsaw. There were some SES guys there too, so all the blokes jumped out and starting clearing the trees away. It was about 2pm when they started.
The SES guys left when it got dark, but the blokes kept going. And soon more and more people joined in. There were chainsaws coming out of cars everywhere!
It takes about an hour to drive that stretch of the highway and the guys worked until after midnight to clear a track through. There must have been half a dozen of them helping and about 50 cars backed up along the highway.
The track they cut was just wide enough for a car and it was used by everyone coming down that road for the next few days – until the SES could clear it properly.
Once we'd started we couldn't go back and these guys walked the entire highway, cutting trees and clearing branches. One was even barefoot! It was a great sight.
It's been lovely being in Townsville, but it's been strange to watch people going about their normal business using power (!) and with no destroyed buildings anywhere. My stepmum had a baby boy by the way, and we're off to see them now. Goodnight!
Tuesday, March 28, 7.30am:
We are heading to Townsville today to be near my stepmother and my dad who are due to have their fifth baby. They live in Tully, but because of the cyclone, she's had to go to Townsville to have it.
My step mum is quiet excited because in Townsville they have a thing called power (!), so she will be able to have a hot shower and sleep in an air-conditioned room.
That's one thing that would be great at the moment. It is really, really humid at night and even though we have a bit of generator power, we only run a light, the TV and the washing machine off it and it is so loud that I feel mean leaving on late at night (don't want to annoy the neighbours), just to run the air-con. So we've been sweating it out at night and trying to sleep in as little as possible.
We went to a cyclone centre at Innisfail TAFE yesterday to pick up some money from the Queensland government, which was nice. Each family got $700 and individuals got $150.
It's also getting really good for food in the town now too. But I never really understood the stories I read about there being shortages of food. Our local Coles has been open since the day after the cyclone and it was only short of cold foods like dairy. And if you went to the main street in those first few days after the cyclone, there was free food and water. I think Qantas flew in about 6000 plane meals. There was even a jumping castle. It was like a street party!
Most of the shops in the main street have opened too, the ones that don’t have structural damage.
We had a lot of emergency supplies stored up so we've been fine. I've been slack in past cyclone seasons, but this year they've been telling us to expect four of five cyclones, so I thought I better get ready.
It was strange, because there wasn't really any warnings on TV about Cyclone Larry until about 4 or 5pm the Sunday before. They were talking about it on radio, but most people don’t listen to it. So, a lot of people were oblivious to what was going to happen.
We spent most of that Sunday getting ready — getting loose stuff on the balcony and buying supplies — but I think a lot of people were at the Feast of the Senses festival that was going on in town. The radio announcer was telling everyone that it was a category three cyclone and then a category four and then he said: "And I'm looking out my window and people are just wandering around as if nothing's about to happen."
Sunday, March 26, 7pm:
If a cyclone hits, they say it is best to get under a mattress. But when Cyclone Larry was on its way, I was scared that I wouldn't be able to keep my 15-month-old son still if we did that. I was also scared that if I got too frightened I would go into labour early.
And then when they said it would be a category four or five cyclone, we decided that was it.
I didn't want to risk it, so at the last minute we decided to go to Tablelands.
After the storm, we heard from our neighbours that our house had been badly damaged. We called them and they said: "Are you sitting down?" And then they told us we'd lost our roof. They lost the roof of their house too.
It's strange, but the house we moved out of only five months ago was not damaged at all and it still has power and everything!
And what the cyclone didn't wreck, the rain did.
Apart from its missing roof, the kitchen of our house was fine. The wind didn't seem to reach that part of the house. The phone was still plugged into the wall and the fruit bowl was still sitting there. But all that rain that came after the cyclone has ruined it and it will have to be completely replaced. I didn't really like the kitchen anyway.
All the house's interior walls will have to be replaced and the new timber floor we put in will have to be replaced too.
I am due to give birth in Innisfail hospital in four weeks. But at the moment the hospital is only accepting emergency cases so I may have to have the baby in Cairns. I need a check-up and will head to Cairns tomorrow and see what they say. I feel okay about this at the moment but if, in a few weeks, the hospital is still not accepting anything but emergency cases, I will start getting worried. My first child was late, so hopefully this one will be too!
I kind of wish the baby was a few more months away. I feel really unsettled and I am the kind of person that likes to have everything organised. I feel guilty that I have unsettled my son too. He doesn't really understand what's happened. (He was too busy playing with his friends at Tablelands during the cyclone and seemed oblivious to it all.) But he's been extra whingy and a bit extra cuddly since then.
We've had some good news from the insurance people. They've agreed to pay our rent for a year while our house is rebuilt. We have found a house to rent and hopefully we will be able to move in before the baby comes.
The water came on a day or so after the cyclone and now it is safe to drink without boiling which is great. It would have been so much worse if we didn’t have water. You don't realise how much you need it.
The majority of Innisfail still don’t have the power back on. The main street has power and houses in the newer part of Innisfail have underground power, so they have been connected to a generator I think and now have power.
We're staying with my husband's parents. There are six of us in the house, but it's great. I don’t have to cook every night and there is always someone around to babysit my son if I need to go back to our house and clean up.
The phone hasn't stopped ringing all week. Relatives and friends have turned up with gift baskets, money and things for the baby. A whole group turned up yesterday to help us clean up the back yard. Some of them I didn't even know!
I feel very fortunate. We have really good family and our church helps too. Without all that, I would feel more depressed.
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