CYCLONE DEBBIE Order to get out of areas at risk

THOUSANDS have been ordered to flee for their lives as Cyclone Debbie, expected to pack 280km/h winds, flooding rain and a deadly 4m tsunami, last night barrelled towards the north Queensland coast.

Residents in low lying areas in Bowen, Proserpine and Airlie Beach were ordered to evacuate their homes with the monster storm due to intensify into a “very destructive” category four system hitting a 300km stretch of coast tomorrow at 4am.

Police and State Emergency Service workers went door-todoor urging residents in “red zones”, which are likely to go under in a predicted storm tide, to pack belongings and find safety with friends or family on high ground.

But there was little sign of a mass exodus at ground zero sites in the eerily calm Bowen yesterday as residents told how they planned to ignore the evacuation order and ride out the storm in their own homes.

SES controller David Thicker said most of the schools and houses in town were built before 1985 and were unlikely to withstand the cyclone.

Darrell Locke, 62, who lives in a red zone at Queen’s Beach in Bowen, said he had seen out six cyclones and had no plans to go anywhere. “This’ll be the biggest cyclone we’ve ever seen but we’re all boarded up and will stick it out at home,” he said.

Big 4 park managers Randy and Karlene Peebles told how they had evacuated two dozen caravan owners, many headed inland, but themselves plan to stay in their waterfront home in the red zone.

“It’s going to be intense, but we’ve got nowhere else to go,’’ Mrs Peebles said.

“I’m getting scared because of the ferocity of it. If we get a 4m tsunami that will be as high as our second-storey. It looks very eerie out to sea.

“It is dead calm, but you can see the clouds are getting darker and trouble is brewing.’’

Cyclone first-timer motherof-three Venesa MacFarlane, of Bowen, was last night moving to an empty rental house in a safe zone as authorities warned her seaside house was likely to go underwater.

“Everything we own is in there. It is heartbreaking to think we could lose it all,’’ she said.

Shelters in Bowen and Proserpine, with a capacity of 800, are due to open today.

English tourists Katie Gathercole, 22, and Becky Veater, 24, in Bowen were “praying for their lives”.

“I’m genuinely scared,’’ Ms Gathercole said.