eddie007

Whether you chant, or pray, or cross your fingers, or just concentrate on positive thoughts... Whatever you do, join me in doing it for the people of Queensland tonight?

Rainydaze

What i find bonkers are all the media crews covering it live from the scene

Hope QLD is spared the worst

The Bloke

To quote "Carver" (Jonathon Pryce) from James Bond - Tomorrow Never Dies...... "there is no news like bad news".....

Surprisingly bad news rates higher than good. Any disaster is a ratings/publication winner for the media...the more sensational the reporting the better.......

odyssey

and they are doing a hugely important job for us all and for the people who are in the centre of it. Without the media we wouldnt know and we couldnt help. The dramatic images help create empathy and a forcefullness to the effort we all have to make to get our state back up and running

irishbloo

Thinking of you all.Keep safe and sound.

Turban Explorer

I have to say catching a little bit of the global media's coverage a couple of hours before it hit us made me much more afraid. Everyone up here, was already set up - with taped, barricaded windows, water containers, first aid boxes, candles, mattresses to put on top of us and so on..... we didn't really need to know that the 'cyclone proof' houses were not tested for 300km per hour winds nor that the army was on standby and that Darwin hospitals were ready to receive possible huge numbers of injured. It was frightening enough without sensationalising it....

Pollyana

That's the sort of detail that really does send shivers down your spine - and thats why its the sort of detail I didn't post. On the other hand, as it has come out by other routes, stuff like that about the army, and Darwin hospitals does show how seriously the äuthorities"were prepared for this event, People have had a go at me (on and offline) about scaremongering, but maybe they are now realising that when I was posting the warnings it was because I had some level of understanding of the preparations behind the scenes, and I knew how serious this event could get. I'm not in the business of scaing people, I was in the business of warning them - but with the hard facts of the official weather warnings, not the sensational style of the media.

ozzieeagle

We had the opposite down here, with the Bushfires 2 years back, seriously underestimated the effects. Hence Dozens died because they stayed behind.

Much better to over dramatize than to feed on the typical Aus mentality that they will be able to cope.

Turban Explorer

Yes it could have been far worse if Cairns or Townsville had ended up in the direct line. Innisfail would have been carnage as well had they not been rebuilt after Larry in 2006 - when incidentally, several mates of mine had their yachts tied up in the mangrove down there (them aboard) with both boats and people surviving intact. I just wish these more freaky TV warnings could have gone out when there was still time to evacuate!! - I saw them about 2 hours before it was due to hit.... Another good but really frightening thing were the text message updates we all got from the government . I think I'll keep those for posterity.

The A Team

Yeah I had to stop watching the news in the end but to be honest the wording from BOM actually freaked me out the most

I do agree though that there is a fine balance between scaring people and warning them to be prepared. I work for Townsville City Council and spent the day before the cyclone hit in the call centre calmly but firmly informing people they needed to be prepared for the storm surge and where was a safe area in Townsville to evacuate to if necessary going by the latest maps. I have to say that the majority of the people I spoke to were taking the threat seriously.

Turban Explorer

Yeah! I don't think BOM has ever had that many hits! We, on a boat up a mangrove in Cairns, had to climb half way up the mast to get enough signal to receive the internet. Refresh, refresh, refresh!!! SHIT!!.... When I close my eyes I still see that big pink baba papa shape and massive red circle!!!

The A Team

YEP!!!

Pollyana

sending those things out is pretty mindblowing when we see just how many phones we are about to hit............... i can only imagine what its like to actually get one. Thats probably the only part of my job I actually hate doing.

When we got the Cat Five warning with the Bureau's extra wording in the middle that was a very sobering moment - we all know what the Bureau warnings are like, standard factual wording. None of us had ever seen them deviate like that before.

hevs

We werent even warned....it just happened......Certainly know which I'd prefer

moneypenny20

I guess it's how you 'read' the info. As someone well away from the area, the knowledge that the army and Darwin hospitals were on standby was quite reassuring bearing in mind we'd watched them evacuate Cairns hospital so knew that would be no use. I didn't see that stuff as sensationalist, just informative. However stuff like some of the media using file photos and videos of previous cyclones was just plain wrong.