 Good afternoon. In a little over 24 hours one of the most significant weather events in Queensland history will occur as tropical cyclone Yasi crosses the coast sometime after 9pm tomorrow night and before 4am the following morning in the Cairns area. This is a life threatening storm and people need to understand that in the next few hours they have a final window of opportunity to self evacuate from areas that will be affected by this cyclone, storm surge and rain pattern. Should people choose not to evacuate from those areas they should seek shelter with friends or family or remain in place if their residents and house is outside of the storm surge area. Certainly I would remind people that this will be a major event that will take several hours to cross the coast and there will be a very large eye or calm area in the middle of the storm. People should not relax, should not go outside during that time due to the high level winds which will follow the crossing of the eye. The effects of this event will be felt from Cape Flattery which is further north than Cooktown to Serena in the south. People who are living in North Queensland should remember that in areas such as Townsville the experience will be similar to a Category 2 cyclone and in Mackay similar to a Category 1 cyclone. Certainly in the hours that are left while safe travel is possible and that is between now and approximately 8-10am tomorrow morning people should make their final preparations to either as I have said shelter in place if not affected by the storm surge or self evacuate from a storm surge risk area. Certainly I would ask you to all monitor your radios for warnings and monitor media reports to gauge the oncoming event. Abay directions, there are many mandatory evacuation orders now in existence and police and SES volunteers will be door knocking areas and contacting residents telling them that they should evacuate and that evacuation is mandatory. Please heed those warnings and follow those directions. Finally I certainly hope that we will come through this together without loss of life but could I say that it is only through good preparation and preparedness that we will weather this storm together and I hope that in the next 48 hours we can look back and examine this event and hope that there has been no significant loss of life or injury. Thank you.