Pollyana

Hope you guys up there are all Ok

FORTY homes are damaged and nine residents had to be treated for injuries, some suffering cuts and abrasions, after a mini-tornado packing 110km/hr winds tore through Townsville early today.
Two elderly residents in the hardest-hit suburbs of Vincent and Garbutt had to be taken to hospital for medical issues while a blackout cut power to 17,000 homes in the north Queensland city.

Widespread flooding is reported from Cairns to Yeppoon with heavy rain predicted for the rest of the day

One aerial image taken by the EMQ helicopter in Townsville revealed the scale of destruction; in scenes reminiscent of "tornado alley" in the United States, houses are completely blown apart, walls disintegrated, and a total of 25 homes were without roofs.

The A Team

We're okay here thanks but OMG I had to go for a scan this afternoon which was across the other side of town. We avoided the worse hit suburbs but even so drove past plenty of fallen trees, sheets of metal hanging off the power lines... many of which were down but with the Ergon crews in attendance. My friend who lives in the suburb next to Vincent said she saw roofs off houses & buildings, cars broken down on the side of the road, traffic lights out and police directing traffic on her drive into work this morning. My thoughts are with the people who were affected by this extreme weather event, these were older houses that had survived several cyclones. Not sure there is such thing as a 'mini' tornado, the guys on weatherzone say it is either a tornado or it isn't...

Pollyana

Not sure at present, think the Jury is still out but it sounds rather similar to the "microburst" that hit the Gap in Brisbane a few years back.
Going to be very expensive, $20million is being mentioned, to say nothing over the effects on people's mental and emotional health.

Some amazing pictures on Weatherzone here

jothefw

Polly - just looking at those pictures, did the town not get any warning? Surely strapping down, or even taking apart trampolines would be the best option?

Poor people.

Pollyana

There was a severe weather warning current, also flood warnings; everyone knew they were in for bad weather. What hit part of Townsville though - whatever the technical term- was similar to a tornado, and similar to those which occasionally hit the UK, they appear out of Mother Nature's pocket with no warning. Most of those houses are built to withstand the sustained winds of a cyclone, but the more erratic and unusaukl wind patterns of an event like like are harder to build against - hence the devastation that occurs in the US after many tornadoes touch down.
If there had been a cyclone warning we would have been empahasising moving trampolines etc but there was no cyclone building, just a warning of damaging wind gusts and very heavy rain/flash flooding as thats all the Met Bureau expected. And that kind of warning is fairly standard for Townsville for weeks at a time, this time of year.
This is being compared tio the microburst in the Gap, which was in late 2008, there hasn't been an event this violent and concentrated over in an urban area of Queensland since- its very unusual stuff - thank goodness!