Some people feel the rain — others just get wet. ~Roger Miller
We know we are islanders because we think in terms of tides & boats, of channels & beacons & what the current is doing when the wind picks up. Weather matters. One learns quickly that it doesn't matter what the bureau says, island weather is different. It will be cold on the jetty regardless of the season or how high the thermometer goes. If it is raining you will get soaked waiting for a boat because the council hasn't twigged yet that rain rarely falls straight down & never when the wind is blowing, therefore merely providing a roof without walls offers no protection @ all.
We are a long way down the northern coast, protected to the east by the long humped line of Minjerribah, & technically outside the cyclone zone. The reality is we were obliged to build for cyclone conditions & have sat out two: Cyclone Nancy in 1990 & Roger in 1993. The next year Rewa sat off the coast but still managed to kill 4 people. Only once did the boats stop running, creating havoc as the Highschoolers, the workers & the shoppers all tried to get home before the last boat. I had one in college The school had a great deal of trouble getting it through it's head that he needed to come home NOW, or risk being stranded.
If you look up the stats they will tell you that a cyclone hasn't crossed Brisbane, though 1954 was a disaster for Brisbane even though the cyclone crossed south over the Gold Coast: Flooding, high winds, cross currents, tidal flooding & structural damage.
One of the reasons we don't live further north is that cyclones are quite simply terrifying ~ even the deflated, wimpy ones that get this far south. Our first was, I think, Nancy & while she officially crossed further south the eye definitely went over the top off us. It is not the sort of thing you forget.
The media tends to focus on the aftermath: drama, drama, drama, but when you have winds barrelling towards you @ 170km an hour the radio or t.v stays on, the cyclone alarm alerting you to each update as you battle the winds & rain to secure your property because, lets face it, cyclones so rarely come this far south no~one really expects more than some high wind, lots of rain & a tidal surge. There is the hunt for the camp stove, which is only even used in these emergencies; the torch, candles & lighters; the trip to the shop for masking tape & extra supplies before taping up windows you just know are going to have sticky marks from all that tape for the next 12 months. And then you wait.
We had, because our neighbour's farmhouse was white ant devastated, extras: a single mum & her two kids & for the early part of the cyclone, with the wind howling & the rain drumming so loudly on the tin roof you couldn't communicate, we entertained our 6 kiddies by bundling everyone into the big king sized bed upstairs to watch the trees on the hill bend at 45 degree angles, twigs & branches flying by & bouncing off the roof, & our thick glass windows being pushed in & out by 4".
In the sudden silence as the eye passed over us we had to grab the hurtle of children anxious to get out & see the damage ~ & so terribly surprised to find we were right & the cyclone hadn't gone anywhere at all.
We haven't had one for a while. My man says we are overdue.