Cyclone Ingrid gathers force

March 8, 2005 - 7:00PM

Send us your photographs or details of your experience of the cyclone here.

Australia's worst cyclone in 30 years was tonight bearing down on the north Queensland coast as thousands of residents prepared for a double whammy of a massive king tide in the region.

Category five Cyclone Ingrid was 240km north-east of Cooktown at 
5pm (AEST) today, and had picked up speed as it moved at 10kph directly west towards the coast.

Dozens of coastal communities in the line of the storm were packing sandbags, felling trees, and gathering emergency supplies as the cyclone moved closer, packing winds of up to 300kph.

The worst cyclone on the east coast for more than a century formed in the Gulf of Carpentaria four days ago and had winds stronger than Darwin's Cyclone Tracy as it moved towards Cape Melville, the scene of Australia's most deadly cyclone in 1899.

More than 400 people, including 100 Aborigines, died in the turn-of the-century storm, which was never categorised. It also destroyed 100 pearl fishing boats anchored in Princess Charlotte Bay, north of the cape.

Cyclone Tracy killed 65 people - 49 on land and 16 at sea - when it struck on Christmas Eve 1974. The winds were recorded at 217kph at the Darwin Airport before the anemometer was destroyed.

The residents of the Aboriginal communities of Hopevale and Wujul Wujul, home to more than 1,500 people, were on standby today to evacuate, along with the nearby 2,000-strong township of Cooktown.

In Cairns, more than 340km south, emergency workers were filling sandbags, the port was closed and fishing trips cancelled, with a 
3.4 metre king tide scheduled to hit early tomorrow.

Authorities were concerned because more than 20 per cent of the city's 130,000 residents had never experienced a cyclone, having moved from southern states within the last five years.

"The big thing is to stop the panic,'' said Cairns City Council disaster management unit co-ordinator Tim Daniel, after meeting with police, state emergency services and health authorities.

"If we have a major flood surge, no amount of sandbags is going to protect us from that.''

Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre Regional Director Jim Davidson said Cyclone Ingrid was half the size of Cyclone Tracy, but had a core twice as big.

"The destructive core is about twice the size of Tracy,'' he said.

"The trouble with Tracy was it moved so slowly across Darwin it battered it for six hours on end.

"Anyone in the path of this cyclone should get under cover, the sea level could rise several metres above the high water mark.

"It's one of the most severe cyclones we've seen in a long time.

"This is a one-off, the environmental conditions were perfect for this cyclone to form. That's why we have it at the intensity it is . . . it's just a very unusual set of circumstances.

"There were very warm sea surface temperatures, very light winds in the upper atmosphere and nothing to break up the cyclone.

"The trough underneath, threatening to break it up is now gone.

"The winds that are steering it are coming from the east. We expect it to keep drifting towards the Queensland coast.''