 As we went to bed last night, we did so holding some very grave concerns about the safety of our friends, family and loved ones in Far North Queensland. It's a great relief this morning to be able to say that at this stage we still have no reports of any casualties, serious injuries or any fatalities. I'm very pleased that we can also report that we've had reports from every evacuation centre where we've seen no structural damage and every one of the 10,500 people who spent a very distressed and uncomfortable night in those centres is safe and sound today. However, I do stress that these are still in some cases early reports. We have some quite small and isolated communities in which from whom we've yet to hear any reports, so we will certainly be monitoring those very carefully throughout the day. But the early reports have given us all, I think, a great sense of relief this morning. Nevertheless, we face a very extensive and devastating damage in some parts of the North and Far North and we continue to see a very dangerous situation in many parts of the region. So I think I can take you through some of this. Firstly, the cyclone is now weakened to a Category 2. It's likely to stay at a Category 2 throughout this afternoon and then weaken overnight to a Category 1. It is making its way through communities across the West and we have a very clear message for those people. We have people safe and sound today who would have been in the path of danger last night if they hadn't listened to the warnings. There is no room for complacency. It may be weakening, but it is still a powerful storm and can and will bring danger to your communities. Please don't take this lightly. Please listen to authorities. The storm surge in a number of areas overnight was lower than expected but still quite damaging in some places with very high surges reported in a number of areas. However, we now have a situation emerging in a number of places around a second storm surge associated with the high tide that's occurring right now. You may have seen some of the early footage out of Cairns and Townsville. We have waves crashing over the Esplanade in Cairns and we have significant water rising in areas like Rose Bay and Palloranda in Townsville. The second surge in Cairns is being reported by authorities there as significantly higher and larger than what they saw last night. This is still a very dangerous situation in Cairns and Townsville around those storm surge areas. For that reason, evacuation centres will remain in lockdown until after the high tide has passed and that won't be until later this morning. We now move to serious monitoring of what the rainfall that this storm brought is bringing into river systems and catchment areas. We've seen extremely high levels of rainfall in a short period of time in a number of these areas. We've had falls as high as 200 millimetres as far south as Mackay in a very concentrated period. So we're now seeing strong flood activity in the Tully River through to Guru and what that means is that in places like Ingham, they are now preparing for at least moderate flooding this afternoon. But if the rainfall continues at its current rate, that could be revised up to heavy and serious flooding in Ingham. In Townsville, we expect major flooding in the northern suburbs and in the areas just north of Townsville through their river systems and at Guru this afternoon heavy flooding. In the areas of the Upper Burtican, again heavy flooding throughout today and this afternoon we would expect for example for that to cut them across and bridge which links Townsville to Charters Towers. There is a heavy rain band that is continuing between the north of Townsville right down to Mackay and that rain band will and already is bringing flooding and we will give further reports about that throughout the day but that may necessitate some evacuations and it may reach dangerous levels in part. This system has affected different communities in different ways and I'll just take you through some of the major areas and what we know so far about those areas. As you're probably aware, Cairns seems to have escaped the worst of this storm and is according to all assessments so far in relatively good shape. Significant power outages, power lines down, debris on the roads, however no major structural infrastructure damaged at this stage. The port and the airport are now being assessed and the city believes that it can be back to fully operational within 24 hours. This is the Aboriginal community of Yarraba, similarly reports as do northern Aboriginal communities, Woodjool, Woodjool and Hopevale, no or little damage. As I said in Cairns, right now we're seeing quite spectacular waves apparently over the Esplanade as a result of that second storm surge. The Table Lounge, the Mariba area reports extensive roads cut from debris but otherwise very little structural damage, a couple of houses with roofs off. By far the hardest hit area is the area around Innisfail. The cyclone crossed around the Mission Beach area and what we've seen is those small communities take the full brunt of this very serious storm system. So the hardest hit towns are Tully, Silkwood, Mission Beach, Innisfail and Cardwell. In place in Innisfail we're seeing for example very serious outages of power with power poles literally snapped in half and in all of those areas they're now getting a very high number of requests for assistance and the early assessments indicating extensive damage. In Tully for example, the early estimate is that one in three houses has either lost its roof or completely demolished and more than 20% of businesses in the main area significantly impacted. Similarly, widespread reports in that area of major crop damage and still being assessed. Mission Beach on very early assessments seeing some damage but maybe not as much as earlier thought but it's still subject to a comprehensive assessment. The town of Cardwell has been very difficult to get into but I can advise that emergency crews have cut their way into Cardwell in the last 20 minutes or so. So we've only got very early reports but the emergency crews report what they say is significant devastation of the township of Cardwell. Older houses, most of the older houses in town have been significantly damaged or completely demolished. Old and newer houses have fared much better but there's been extensive force into this town for those of you who don't know Cardwell, it sits there's the ocean, the highway and then the township. Boats have been pushed two blocks up into the township so they have experienced significant storm surge and that has caused extensive damage. Coming further south Townsville has experienced very very heavy weather overnight. It's experienced some of the heaviest rainfall and winds and is continuing to do so. Townsville is still experiencing quite damaging and dangerous conditions with their flying debris. At the moment and you'll appreciate in these conditions it's hard to get a full assessment but authorities are saying despite all of that the damage doesn't look too bad but it is only a preliminary assessment because of the difficult weather. It is as I said still a dangerous situation and evacuation centres are not being unlocked at this stage. We are seeing flooding as I indicated and there is an early report of water damage to the water treatment plant in Townsville. It's too early yet to say just what that damage will mean for the water supply but we're monitoring it. There will be some big logistical exercises today in managing some of the people who have been evacuated and who will be unable to go back into their own homes and just by way of one example, in a college at Townsville there are currently 200 high-care aged patients being cared for. 40 of those are from a nursing home in Cardwell and today while the school was a very good place to keep them sheltered and safe overnight it is not where they can be adequately cared for for a long period of time. So a very significant planning exercise is now being undertaken to relocate those patients either if possible back to some of their own nursing homes although most of them come from areas that are currently flooding in Townsville or otherwise into other parts of Queensland. The island of Palm Island, I'm very pleased to report, reports that all is well on palm. No buildings have seen significant damage although we have got some roofs off. A very high number of power lines down and the water in Palm Island is fine so we'll get a further assessment but Palm Island despite being out there in the middle of all of that appears to have come through reasonably well. The town of Ingham and the surrounding Shire of Henshinbrook reporting some damage, a number of roads closed but their focus right now is on preparing for what is likely to be a quite a significant flood event in the Ingham area. That's really, I think, gives you a snapshot of the areas that have been mostly impacted and affected. If I can just go now to some of the essential services and what that means for people in this whole region whether they've been affected by the cyclone or not. Power link in relation to our major transmission lines report that the electricity supply line, that is the main spine going inland, taking power into the high voltage line, taking electricity into North Queensland, has not been damaged and is intact so we're very relieved about that. However, the supply line coming down into those coastal communities has been cut south of Innisfail. It is not clear yet what is why it has been cut and we won't know until they are able to get into the air and check all along that system. I should say that that requires checking 400 kilometres of line and 500 transmission towers. By way of example, we had a tower go down on that line just before Christmas and it took two weeks to get it operational again. So we don't know yet if we have multiple towers out. In relation to electricity supply, we have 177,000 homes who are without electricity supply, some because of that transmission break, others simply because of the extensive damage done to power lines and power poles. To give you a bit of a sense of where the biggest impact is, in Townsville, only 15% of the City of Townsville has electricity supply at the moment. The town of Ingham has no electricity supply, about 34% of Cairns has supply and in Mackay Prosopine about half of all homes have supply. So this cyclone is still moving west and our electricity providers indicate that they expect that 177,000 to grow and get up over the 200,000 mark. Many, I do ask people to understand that many Ergon staff have been affected themselves. Many of them are in evacuation centres and their own homes have been affected or they are cut off from their workplaces. That means we're bringing southern teams in and they are arriving in the area this morning with a view to getting them out on the ground as quickly as we can. We have 100 generators being supplied and further generators being supplied if needed from the Army to resupply critical infrastructure. Things like water treatment plants that may need generators to pump to keep them moving. I do need to say to some people in this region that you are going to have to be very patient in some areas about electricity supply and to give you an example in Cyclone Larry, it took a full four weeks before every single person who lost supply on the night of the cyclone was fully restored to power. We will clearly be doing everything in our power to do that faster but it's a much wider region and we've yet to find some of the areas that are causing the problem. We have teams of emergency workers as I've said trying to get their way into isolated towns. They are at the moment cutting their way into Mission Beach. They've just got into Cardwell and there are many other small towns in that area that they will be trying to get into. Of course we also have many isolated rural properties that will take some time to assess. In relation to telecommunications Telstra is reporting 25 of their stations out and that means they've been destroyed by the cyclone and will take some time to get operational again and that's mainly in that Innisfail Ingham hardest hit area. But right from Mackay to Cairns there are 450 points on the network that are now operating without mains power that means they're using backup generators and over the next six to eight hours are likely to lose that power. So unless we can get them up on mains power people can expect significant and severe disruptions to the mobile network and their and their mobile capacity and we'd ask for patience. It's too early yet to say much about major transport routes other than to say the early assessments indicate that other than major debris on the Bruce Highway it doesn't appear to have suffered major damage and if we can get that debris off the road there is at least some prospect of the Bruce Highway being opened today but people shouldn't travel on it until they get confirmation of that. In relation to health facilities the Tully Hospital has had a part of its roof go off overnight. There are seven patients in that hospital. All of those patients and staff are safe but clearly we are working to restore safety to the Tully Hospital as soon as we can. Cairns Hospital is looking to reopen their emergency department at the hospital sometime today. They will not be opening it while that surge stormwater surge activity is happening on the Esplanade because it would be unsafe for patients or staff to try to access the hospital but as soon as that danger passes we will see the emergency department of the Cairns Hospital reopen for normal business. The Red Cross reports that overnight in the evacuation centres people were all in good spirits and cooperating with each other in what must have been I think very difficult and very trying circumstances. One of the biggest challenges for the Red Cross today will be establishing appropriate evacuation facilities for those people who have been made homeless by this event. Their focus right now is on Tully and on ensuring that they have enough accommodation in a town where we do seem to see at least one in three homes temporarily at least uninhabitable. So that will be one of the challenges today as we move into recovery phase. This is for example one of the one of the otherwise possible evacuation centres in Tully the senior citizens hall has been completely demolished. So as I said some challenges there in accommodating people who have been rendered homeless. So I think that's most of the information that I have to give to you today but this morning as you can see it's still an unfolding event. There are still many things that are unknown and we still have people in danger out there and we still have people whose communities are in the path of a very serious storm and we're monitoring all of that along with what could be some serious flooding. Nevertheless I certainly think that many people in North Queensland this morning will be breathing a sigh of relief and we certainly do that along with you but I'm equally aware that today for some people in this region they will be going back into their communities going back into their neighbourhoods and facing scenes of considerable devastation. There are people now who have lost their homes they've lost their farms they've lost their crops and they've lost their livelihoods and I have no doubt that many of them will feel a great sense of despair as they walk back into those communities particularly those that only five years ago were destroyed by Cyclone Larry. Can I say to people in that circumstance I know that it would be tempting to feel totally overwhelmed by what you are about to go back into and what you will be what will be required of you over coming weeks as you move to restore your lives and if you are feeling alone can I say to you you are not alone. Just as the people of North Queensland gave all their care and support and help and assistance to people here in the south and in the central part of our state during the floods it's coming right back at you. You are about to find people from all over Queensland coming into your communities to help you rebuild and restore your lives. In the immediate term our task today is to get emergency workers on the ground and start the process of cleaning up and that's exactly what we'll be doing. Commissioner. Thanks Premier and could I just add to the Premier's comments and in terms of in places particularly like Innisfil and Tulley and ask people to be very aware of their safety in terms of fallen power lines. Ask people in towns or cans and the areas in between not to use the roads until the authorities declare that they're safe to be used. In Townsville and Palm Island there are still reports of heavy rain and high winds and unfortunately this is not over yet. This cyclone is of course an extraordinary weather event and it's unprecedented and one of the aspects of that is that it is still moving towards Mount Isa and it's still assessed as being a category one cyclone when it hits Mount Isa which is scheduled for 8pm this evening. So we're asking people in all the towns in and around places like Georgetown, Julia Creek, Richmond, on Currie and Winton and the towns near Mount Isa such as Doommagee, Dejara and Cameroon to take notice of the warnings to stay inside and that's people on the properties in that zone as well. And one of our concerns is that I don't think that people in those areas would ever experience a category 2 cyclone or for that matter a category 1 cyclone. So we're pleading with people in those localities to take this seriously to stay inside and heed all the warnings. It would seem as though we've been blessed and fortunate so far. We want that to continue. Thank you. Premier the report of the Casuary Coast Mayor having some concerns for a profit of 100 people in part of this area. Have you heard anything about that? Well certainly the Mayor of the Casuary Coast advised the disaster management group this morning that there are a number of smaller communities in his region which are totally inaccessible at the moment. As we as we speak we have emergency teams out literally cutting their way into these communities. The Casuary Coast is the area that has sorry has some of those towns that have taken the biggest brunt and some of them are cut off by massive debris and trees being brought down. So yes there are many unknowns as much as we do breathe a sigh of relief because the early reports indicate that people are safe. It is not it is not over yet and I don't for one minute think that we can't we can still expect I think the possibility of sad and bad news. So we are monitoring and we are out there literally cutting our way into communities to find people who might be unsafe. About a group of six people at Port Hinchinbrook you know have you any information about how they support? Yes I'm very pleased to advise that the six people we heard of last night at Port Hinchinbrook have all have been spoken to directly this morning and they are safe and well. Premier Murray's report was said to have been evacuated but I understand up to a hundred people did stay behind in Cardwell. Can you shed any light on that and has there been any contact made with anyone who did stay behind in Cardwell? Literally as I walked into this briefing this morning we got late breaking news that the emergency teams had just cut into Cardwell. So other than being able to tell you that they've struck a significant devastation we are unable to advise any further on Cardwell but we'll do so as soon as we can but remember that look it's impossible for me to say whether people did or not. Certainly the mayor indicated that the whole town was to be evacuated we certainly understood that people had taken that warning very seriously as I said Cardwell is right on the water it is literally on the waterfront. I can't rule out that some people chose not to take that advice but we do know that we have a number of very small towns in and around this area that would have between 50 and 100 residents and nobody has heard from them yet and we haven't got any crews into them. Premier my slightly warning we were facing a catastrophic event. As you say so far the news is relatively good. How much are you putting that down to preparations that will make? I don't think there is any doubt that the fact that authorities, local governments and people on the ground prepared so well for this event in advance and most importantly the fact that the citizens of these towns took the warning seriously and acted accordingly and cooperated with great courage and resilience and patience is the reason so many of them are safe and well and alive this morning. But I do stress that there are still places we have yet to get reports from and we won't be saying we've dodged bullets until we know everyone is safe. What are the agency payments that are available to people who have lost their people? Thank you for that question. I'm very pleased to say that the Prime Minister and I have this morning approved these areas as eligible for natural disaster relief payments. Clearly some of these communities are inaccessible at the moment but the minute we can get recovery teams in there we'll be making payments available to people and obviously depending on their circumstances we'll be looking to work out what's the most appropriate form of relief for them. After Larry there was some concerns at the end of the start with people working in the money fast enough. Have you addressed those concerns this morning? Again it will depend in some communities about how quickly we can get teams on the ground but we do have teams of recovery staff from Department of Communities and Centrelink staff ready to go in. As you've heard some of these communities are still experiencing torrential rain and serious dangerous winds. We will not be sending people in until that's alleviated and until we've got a safe place for them to be. But as soon as we can get people on the ground we will be making those relief payments available to everyone who needs them. Yes now that we know now we've come a little bit further down the track I can confirm that of course the flood appeal will now have to broaden out to be a wider disaster appeal. I do anticipate that more people will be able to access their insurance payments because there won't be any dispute about the definition of the event they've just experienced. It doesn't have the same problems of the definition of flooding. Nevertheless I do expect that we will find people in very difficult and extreme circumstances and of course we'll be doing everything we can through our relief appeal to look after them too. Do you anywhere not know? I'm sorry I didn't hear the question. I'm sorry anyone on that heavy lift ship will that be familiar? This was sorry. At this stage they were contemplated and put on alert given the possibility that there may be no operational base for the recovery effort. So for example if either the City of Cans or Townsville was so devastated that they couldn't support an operating base we would have looked at possibly locating one on a ship offshore. As we've seen both Cans and Townsville we'll be able to support an operating base from which we can build the recovery effort so we don't believe that will be necessary. Could we now supply the inland spine? Is that now completely out of date given that the storm is moving across this area? It has moved past that area. It is intact and we're very very pleased about that. It makes this effort considerably more easier. In terms of essential supplies though with water treatment plants out are there any sewerage treatment plants out as well? We still have councils out on the ground checking all of their water and sewerage treatment plants. As I indicated we've got an early report out of Townsville that at least one water treatment plant has incurred some damage the extent of it is yet being worked through. That is why we will have generators for example some of the water treatment plants may be inoperable where there is no mains power supply without generating capacity. So that is critical infrastructure and that will be prioritised for major generation capacity. So as we get more and more reports throughout today and tomorrow we'll be able to give a better picture of essential services. I should say that in Tully and Cardwell the council are unable to supply water and residents have been advised to boil water in those two areas but nowhere else at this stage. Has this burned up your thinking about permanent disaster levy? I haven't had an opportunity to give that much thought overnight at all but without a doubt it's an extreme circumstance in our country's history for any place to have a rolling set of disasters as we've had. The worst floods in our history across three quarters of the state followed by the worst cyclone over a huge area in more than a century or almost a century so it would be of course we're going to sit down and work about what are the lessons from this whether it does mean we look at things like disaster funds I think are a question for the coming weeks. Right now we've still got people in danger out there we've still got emergency workers trying to make sure that people are safe and alive and that's going to be our priority today. We will have to look at money we will have to look at infrastructure but today people are number one. This was our speculation a couple of days ago about another system another cyclone form is behind have you had any weather bureau advice on that? No the bureau is still advising that there are no other systems yet forming or formed however we remain on alert for what we know is a continuing storm and wet season. That's going to be a big problem if you've got these communities without electricity without communications and we've got another cyclone bearing down which is likely given that's been forward that's an extent. That is why it is so critical that we put electricity and telecommunications at the forefront of our recovery effort ensuring that people can access information in the context of possible future events even current events such as flooding are absolutely critical. That's why we've got crews flying in today and every effort will be made to restore all of those essential services but these are difficult dangerous and very isolated places in some cases and we need to be realistic about what's possible. Not that I'm aware of now and I'd like to take that opportunity to thank people for their understanding and their patience. We had 8,000 people in temporary shelters in Cairns and I think over 2,000 in Townsville and that was done very quickly and obviously the facilities weren't evacuation centres as we had at the exhibition grounds here for the floods and in other places but I think overall, given the shortness of time that went as well as we could possibly have hoped for and again if I could just thank all the people who were there for their patience and their tolerance and their understanding. How about the West in those areas have the United Stations any elements which rated any word back from how those services are done? As the Premier's indicated the assessments are still being conducted in some places we're still having trouble getting in because of trees and that over the roads but at this stage police residences at both Mission Beach and at Silkwood have been damaged we believe they will be able to maintain police operations in both those Towns. Premier, just in terms of the emailing communities that are now going to get the storm what things are in place to ensure that they get services back to normal as quickly as possible? These are small communities going into the western part of the state but their councils have been preparing along with the coastal councils now for a number of days so messages have been getting out to people about making preparations ensuring that they're in the higher parts of Town relocating where they need to and clearly as we get reports as the cyclone makes its way they will be getting the same support as major coastal centres they'll be getting emergency crews they'll be getting electricity restoring restoration teams and it doesn't matter whether they're little tiny Towns of 10 people or major regional centres with thousands every one of them is critical to our state and every one of them will be looked after I should have said of course along with I think every Australian I welcome to the world the three babies that were born in the middle of this crisis last night I don't think anybody can imagine what it must have been like particularly for the mum at the Red Lynch State School evacuation centre congratulations to her and her family on the birth a very safe birth of their child a huge thanks to the midwife who assisted in the birth who was here on holiday from the United Kingdom for her 25th wedding anniversary so an extraordinary story and a great powerful symbol I think of resilience and survival having given birth myself the idea of doing it in a school hall with a thousand people one can only begin to imagine so well done to all of them two other babies safely born just before 11 o'clock at Innisfail Hospital Innisfail Hospital of course right in the eye of the storm just an hour later so we're very pleased that all of those three little ones made it safely into the world clearly we will now give some significant thought to how we conduct the reconstruction effort yet again the reconstruction effort of our state has increased exponentially in the matter of days every time we start to settle down into the task we have a new task put onto the plate those arrangements will now have a really good look at what can reasonably be accommodated and how we will manage it and we'll advise people as soon as we've settled on those thank you