Category Archives: Cyclone Yasi

Cyclone Yasi – Silkwood Clean-Up Volunteers

Today 250 wonderful volunteers arrived in Silkwood to help residents clean up the village. This was organised by David Hall, a resident of Silkwood and owner of the Overflow shops in the area. Whole families, single people, sailors, you name it and they were here lending a hand. Two of the people that worked on our place run a clearance business and they donated their services free of charge. How cool is that? We even had a couple of Canadian ladies that are here as part of a teacher-exchange programme.

Try as I might I can’t think of words that begin to express our thanks to these selfless folk. I’ll leave it with this: you are legends.

Some pix from the day. I’ll add names when I can find my notebook.

Edit: The total over both days was close to 500. As well as the people mentioned above there were two guys from Thursday Island who had never been to mainland Aus before and one guy who carried fallen logs in his wheelchair. Yes, that’s correct, a wheelchair.

Special thanks too to Craig and Craig who work in PNG Monday-to-Friday and gave up their weekend off to help out. There’s a couple of cold ones with your names on waiting at the Silkwood Hotel.

Edit 2: I now have my notebook again so here are the good people that helped clear the debris from our place:

  • Hayley and Craig Read
  • Lisa and Shelby
  • Lee-anne
  • Rob Graafland
  • Rob, Annie and Blake Lemmey
  • Rachel and Jeremy White of What A Load Of Rubbish
  • Ben Loftus
  • Andrew Evans
  • Glyn Wakeman

Good people.

Edit 3: It’s almost a year and I still haven’t sent those emails. I’ll remedy that today.

Silkwood Clean-Up

Silkwood Clean-Up

Silkwood Clean-Up

Silkwood Clean-Up

Silkwood Clean-Up

Silkwood Clean-Up

Silkwood Clean-Up

Silkwood Clean-Up

Silkwood Clean-Up

Silkwood Clean-Up

Silkwood Clean-Up

Silkwood Clean-Up

Silkwood Clean-Up

Silkwood Clean-Up

Silkwood Clean-Up

More house pix

Colour Coded Generator

Colour Coded Generator

Very kind of Ergon to take aesthetics into account.

Piles Of House

Piles Of House

The missing bits.

Small Garage

Small Garage

At least the mower stayed dry.

Crumbly Stumps

Crumbly Stumps

One of the concrete stumps that keep the house above ground.

Dangle

Dangle

The mains electricity cable to the house. Nearly pulled down by passing trucks so Ergon snipped it.

It's Good To Talk

It's Good To Talk

Telstra announced free calls from all phone boxes. Cyclone damage or eager users?

Nice

Nice

Doesn’t need any explanation.

Some thoughts while I have the chance

2011-02-04 0800

Where to start? I’m trying to put together a prioritised list for getting the house straightened out because my head is just full of “this needs doing, that needs doing” thoughts. Maybe writing the list and this post will help me focus.

We decided to go back home last night as there is mains water in Silkwood; that’s something Tully doesn’t have yet.

The phone lines are supposed to be working but we took our stash of manual phones to the council offices before the cyclone as we knew the fancy schamancy VoIP system would be worthless under these circumstances. This means we have a working phone line at home but no phone to plug into it. Lisa’s iPhone is working some of time but the connection is very flaky. The EDGE connection means that Internet connectivity on the iPhone is too slow to be usable. We have Lisa’s 3G dongle and will try to connect with that later to post this. If you’re reading this you know it worked.

The main house structure looks Ok at first with the visible damage mostly superficial. Closer inspection shows that the building has twisted. Internal doors are sticking in their frames and some of the ceiling boards are visibly warped. Rain is dripping in from front to back along the ridge line so the floor is covered in pots and pans. There was a horrendous thunderstorm that blew through yesterday evening and that really didn’t help matters. The missing gutters and downpipes are letting rain run between the walls and the verandah roofs and this is directing water through the walls to the fibro inner linings and they are saturated.

Last night, about mid-evening, a massive thunderstorm blew in from the north. Not as loud as the cyclone but in other circumstances it would have been pretty evil and of course that brought more rain. More rain means more leaks and more pans, buckets and trays on the floor.

2011-02-04 16:50pm

With more irony than any one needs the mains water failed this morning. Now we can’t wait for more rain as this means we can collect it for washing dishes and ourselves. It’s also thundering again.

Today was pretty busy. Lots of cleaning and fixing. Lots of shifting of wood, metal and green waste to the side of the road ready to be picked up later. I managed to contact the SES to arrange for some roof tarpaulins but they won’t be here for at least two days.

Went for a chat with our lovely neighbours, Dale and Morris, and they served us tea and cake. After two days of almost no food it tasted pretty damn good. They also let us recharge my netbook and that was most handy after our UPS died the second time we used it. The UPS was going to keep cameras and phones charged while we have no power. Talking of power, Ergon Energy say it will be at least four weeks before the mains supply is back to normal. Not sure about the water yet.

Lisa rescued some frozen food that was still at fridge temperature and is currently cooking a huge meal.