The Day I Felt Pure Terror

I woke one morning to a text message

There’s a cyclone sitting off our foreshore,

They had named it Cyclone Yasi

Oh no, we’ve certainly been here before.

***

To give you a little bit of background

It was only a short 5 years before,

That Cyclone Larry, Category 5

Come and visited our shore.

***

Our luck held while we hid in my house

But troublesome Larry lifted up my roof,

Everything inside was totally destroyed

My house, no longer weatherproof.

***

Two years we patiently waited

For the extensive house repairs,

Though the finish product is stronger

A much better state of affairs.

***

However, all this took a toll on us

So when Yasi was sighted out there,

I naturally worried for my boys and I

As this turned into a nightmare.

***

The news was reporting that Cyclone Yasi

A Category 5, three times the size of Larry,

Would cross that night and visit awhile

No doubt it was going to get hairy.

***

I started to be concerned

The later and later it become,

I was too close to the beach

To be confident of the outcome.

***

Not safe to ride this out in my house,

But no evacuation places nearby,

A friend invited me to her place

As it was easier and safer to fortify.

***

It was getting closer to the sun setting

When I started to feel fear,

How would my boys and I survive

This powerful destructive atmosphere?

***

I was told that our government

Had very little, if any, confidence

They flew in 20,000 body bags,

Not surviving was a real consequence.

***

It was after that horrific news

That I started to feel pure terror,

I only hoped we’d done enough

But it was all trial and error.

***

I thought it was going to be

Impossible to survive,

We couldn’t outrun this beast

Our only hope was to hide.

***

I sent off text messages to my family

While we still had mobile coverage,

I was silently saying my goodbyes

While trying to boost up my courage.

***

When it hit, it hit us hard

For 16 hours straight,

The noise was unimaginable

Like a train carrying freight.

***

Sixteen hours is a long time

For sheer terror to take hold,

There were many times that night

The universe was uncontrolled.

***

As I’m penning this account

It’s obvious we come out the other side,

My part of the world was devastated

But thankfully we all survived.

***

Two weeks without power

Complicated the recovery,

But I could now handle anything

We were alive, all else a luxury.

***

I’ve included below the tracking map, showing the path Cyclone Yasi took, directly over the top of us in Mission Beach Australia.

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Originally posted on Medium