Cyclone Debbie crosses Queensland coast

Cyclone Debbie crosses Queensland coast

NEWS: goo.gl/a3kAcQ



Cyclone Debbie has made landfall on the Queensland coast between Bowen and Airlie Beach as a category four storm.



The cyclone has registered wind gusts of over 260km/h as it slowly moved over the Whitsunday Islands.



The cyclone's destructive core has been affecting the Whitsundays for several hours as those in mainland coastal communities await her full force.



Debbie has slowly moved westward at a speed of about 6km/h after earlier moving toward the mainland at 10km/h.



Vulnerable residents have been warned the danger will not be over for many, many hours, and they may have to remain in their shelter until Wednesday.



Those on the island say the sound of the wind is deafening, and brick buildings built to withstand cyclones are vibrating under the force. At Airlie Beach, near Bowen, Debbie's fury is building.



The helplessness felt by Whitsunday Mayor Andrew Wilcox was evident on Tuesday morning, as he monitored damage reports as they started flowing in.



'She's slowed down out there so she can just keep smashing us,' he said.



'What would be ideal is for her to either, one, go away, but if not come straight across quite quickly. But, yeah, Debbie isn't playing the game here.'



He told Sky News it's important that everyone stays indoors to ensure that no one, including emergency services, have to go out during the storm.



'You certainly wouldn't want to put emergency crews out in this, and to put themselves in harm's way' he said.



That's why we have asked everyone to stay safe, stay in a secure place, baton down the hatches, and we'll get through this.'



At Airlie Beach, close to Bowen, debris is flying through the air, and the power is out.



'We just had a branch fly into our window,' AAP photographer Dan Peled said from one local hotel.



'We've got howling winds, torrential rain. The trees are sideways. There's lots of vegetation debris and there's a bit of water in the hallway. We're just looking at a wall of white with the trees, we can't see much. It's full on.'



Whitsunday councillor Jan Clifford has spent the morning watching trees take flight from her backyard at Airlie Beach.



'A huge tree in my backyard has been uprooted and has taken out our fence,' Ms Clifford told AAP.



'That was a rainforest tree pushing a metre in diameter. It should have been okay. Another tree has landed on my roof. The wind is so loud.'



Earlier Deputy Police Commissioner Stephan Gollschewski said roofs were lifting in the Whitsundays region, and some police facilities there had been damaged.



Tourist Helena Mo, who is sheltering inside Hamilton Island's high-rise Reef View Hotel says Debbie has her scared.



'I have never heard gusts of wind howl this loud and this intense before,' she told AAP.



'You can't help but worry about what's going to happen next.'



So far more than 35,000 households are without power, and almost 400 schools and child care centres in the north are closed.



Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has warned the vast size of the cyclone - the worst to hit Queensland since Yasi six years ago - means the devastating core could take many hours to pass.



'It is going to be felt in a lot of communities from Townsville all the way down south to Mackay. And of course there will be the flooding events that happen afterwards.'



Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said Debbie's slow pace is having 'a battering ram effect'.



'These winds are going to keep pounding, pounding, pounding,' he said, and also warned of two possible storm surges coinciding with Tuesday's high tides. Those storm surges have put low lying areas, including in Mackay, at risk of inundation.



'I suspect before the day is out, we will see a lot of structural damage in the cyclone's path,' Mr Stewart said.



Police staffing triple-zero calls have told of increasingly panicked calls for help.



One caller said the roof was lifting off an apartment building in the Whitsunday region. Another caller from the region is sheltering in the laundry of a home that's roof has caved in.



At Mackay, there are a huge number of downed power lines and fallen trees, including one monster tree that's blocking the Peak Downs Highway.



At Prosperpine, southwest of Airlie Beach, pig farmer Christina della Valle has lost a large machinery shed and two others that housed her animals.



'The pigs are in front of the house. I can't go there (to check on them). It is too dangerous. There are so many uprooted trees and flying debris,' she told ABC radio.



'Fortunately I don't have any newborn piglets because they'd be swept away.'



With AAP



For live rolling updates on Cyclone Debbie, tune in to Sky News Weather on Foxtel channel 603.