During the dead of night on Wednesday, February 2, Cyclone Yasi tore through the small North Queensland towns of Tully and Mission Beach, ripping apart more than half of the homes, landmarks and buildings.
In one home, an 87-year-old pensioner who is nearly blind, lives alone and is on a walking frame, moved around her house terrified of the brute force of the cyclone.
Her only way to judge which doors would blow out next, due to the wind force, was by touch.
It was, in fact, touch and go; facing death — for her and so many.
Another resident in his early 20s, who was due to be married on the Saturday after Yasi hit, lost everything in the carnage – his home, every possession he owned.
But he was only concerned about his neighbour, who he felt needed help more so.
He had not seen his neighbour, his neighbour’s wife who suffers from multiple sclerosis (MS) or their 15-year-old daughter, who has Down syndrome and wanted to get some assistance to them.
These are just two of the many stories that pulled at the core of Vicki Clout’s heartstrings.
The 50-year-old Port Macquarie resident and mother of two has recently returned from Tully and Mission Beach, also described as “Ground Zero” when the category five cyclone hit, where she worked alongside fellow Australian Red Cross emergency volunteers to help rebuild the victims’ lives.
During a 12-day recovery mission, Vicki (who has been with the Red Cross for eight years) and a 110-strong team, banded together, in primitive and often challenging conditions, to work with authorities to ensure the local residents had enough resources to survive through the devastating natural disaster, including survival packs, financial assistance and much-needed emotional support.
Living in a community of tents, with no fresh running water, electricity and basic amenities and food supplies, Vicki and the Red Cross team did what they do best: helping those in need.
Although Vicki is unable to disclose some aspects of her time in Tully and Mission Beach, in respect of the privacy of the towns’ residents, this is her emotional recount, in her very own words…
“I received a call on February 3 to be advised I had been activated to Tully for a 12-day deployment.
I had been watching Cyclone Yasi unfold on the television as we all had and knew this would be a very emotional trip.
My first thought was, ‘How would work respond to this request?’ [Vicki is a sales consultant specialising in personal lending at the Short Street branch of the Holiday Coast Credit Union].
Twelve days off is a long time to expect any business to allow staff to be away on such short notice.
I went straight to my manager [Noleen Turner] who said she couldn’t see any reason for me not to go.
She contacted my CEO [Neville Parsons] who sent an email saying ‘Stay safe and make us proud’.
I was going.
My flights were confirmed via email: Port Macquarie-Sydney-Brisbane-Cairns, a 9kg soft bag only.
That was my first huge challenge.
On Monday morning my husband [Phil] dropped me at Port Macquarie Airport at 8am.
Although we are frequently apart due to my husband’s job, I remember thinking two weeks is so very long.
The day was the longest ever.
At each airport we met more and more Red Cross uniforms, and so began our bonding as a team.
Volunteers came from all over Australia — NSW, Canberra, WA, South Australia and Tasmania.
We all seemed to interact well together.
We arrived in Cairns and were escorted to a motel at 11pm.
After a quick debrief we were partnered off and told to be back in the foyer at 6am ready to go.
My first night was with a wonderful woman who happened to be the oldest of the group.
She was 71.
We both didn’t sleep a wink; instead read our Red Cross folders we were given full of information pertaining to this deployment.
The next morning on the bus I was very anxious.
It had been more than 48 hours of waiting and I think I had too much time to think.
As we left Cairns and travelled through the countryside, the bantering in the bus stopped and silence took over.
The further we went, the worse the surroundings became.
We were nearly there.
We arrived in Tully just before 9am and were asked to place our bags in our meeting area.
My name was one of the first called.
I made my way to the recovery centre approximately 200 metres away where I was to meet the centre’s team leader.
Truth number one: ‘You will hit the ground running’.
After a five-minute brief on what our job entailed, the doors of the centre were opened and we flew into action.
The recovery centre, as small as it was, had every agency in there: DoCS, Centrelink, Lifeline, council, housing, small business, electricity department, chaplains, Red Cross and insurance agencies.
Red Cross had a multitude of jobs within the centre.
We would meet people at the door to ascertain their needs.
A Red Cross volunteer then guided them to where they needed to be.
Our main concern was for their emotional welfare.
We then could assess if people needed further follow-up.
These people were then placed on a targeted outreach registrar [where volunteers will visit and care for their needs outside the recovery centre].
After a very full day we were debriefed in our team to discuss what was effective and if anything could be improved on, also any emotional issues we may have personally encountered.
Back at tent city we gathered our belongings and found a cot in one of the available tents.
Once settled, we met back at our common area for a hot dinner kindly provided by the Salvation Army.
But there was no fresh water or electricity. Our little city was run by generators.
Salvation Army ran out of a small caravan at the rear of our common area.
They did an amazing job.
After an evening get together with all the volunteers, team leaders and management, we went to find our cot in one of the eight tents.
Tent city was set up around the tennis centre and consisted of eight very large tents accommodating 14 people.
There was no air conditioning on our first four nights and because Tully has the most rain in all of Australia (one thing I didn’t know) we had to sleep with all windows and doors closed.
After the first night we were quite used to the heat.
Our bedding was a sleeping bag and a cotton insert and a blow up pillow.
Most of us used the sleeping bag as a mattress with the cotton sheet on top.
I could not believe how comfortable a blow up pillow was!
Our tents were provided by Queensland Fire Brigade who also slept in tents at the rear of ours.
The firies looked after all the day-to-day workings of our centre.
They maintained the tents, sweeping and mopping, looked after the lighting and basically the safety of all of us whilst we were at our camp.
They also provided four module showers and the running of cold water to them.
I know you are thinking, ‘How could you shower in cold water?’ but it was a luxury at the end of a day.
Because the water was undrinkable, we used bottled water to brush our teeth.
The following three days I remained at the recovery centre.
There were approximately 1100 people coming through the doors every day.
My fourth day was spent at the Cardwell recovery centre.
On our fourth night we were told to pack our things as we were having a rest day in Cairns the next day.
I was pretty relieved as most of had run out of clean clothes.
And although we all smelt the same, I couldn’t wait to do some washing.
During my day in Cairns we went to the back packers and loaded up the washing machine.
We then headed to the shopping centre for the best cappuccino I have ever tasted.
We walked around in the wonderful air conditioning and then back to our motel for a leisurely swim in the pool followed by an Indian take-away meal — bliss.
The next morning we were back on the bus to our tent city.
My next venture was at Mission Beach outreaching with DoCS.
The people we met were so resilient in the face of losing so much.
Still with no electricity or fresh water, they were busy trying to get some normality back into their lives.
DoCS were staying in Cairns, so we needed to be back at the centre at around 2pm.
Once they were gone, Red Cross would go out on our own using our list of people on the targeted outreach list, or revisited homes we had been to that morning that we thought needed more follow-up.
We met some amazing people and heard the most amazing stories.
We took out supplies where we could, fresh water, clothing, food, cuddles and so on.
Over the next couple of days I travelled to many different areas around Mission Beach.
Although it was extremely hot and wet, you tended to forget about any of these issues.
Block out, Bushman’s and hand sanitiser became our best friends.
Our last night as a team was quite emotional.
Everyone became a family to me … .”
