I think this event deserves its own thread guys...its too big of a event to not deserve its own thread.

Video 1 documentation from Nitso and Myself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm1F-L5t8...SHq9ZH_3ZUWtgw=

Looking at the damage path today and the devastation through some suburbs, i do not know how anyone didnt get killed. I saw video of a star picket through a wall. Injuries were obbiously sustained but gee....lucky it wasnt 8am...

i shall repost my report from today trav -

well been so busy at work i havent had a chance to tell my story.

i was out until 1230am shooting flooding all through currajong, fairfield waters, cluden and annandale. some fanatastic fast flowing water through cluden. was awesome to see.
woke at 430am to some thunder and lightning. rain was pretty heavy too. went back to bed for a while until the lightning really picked up again, it was almost constant flashes by this stage. went out onto the verandah and the wind was really picking up, flashes everywhere, even a green flash to my east. in hindsight alot of it would have been power transformers going off. the wind was getting crazy, so i went back inside, and i was getting worries. my wife and then one of my kids came out to the lounge room. and thats when i heard it coming. as they say on tv, like a train or plane overhead the wind just roared in and slammed the house, it shook the house pretty solidly. the glass louvres were all open and alot of them all clashed together it sounded like they were breaking but it was just the wind hitting them and shaking them.
our chairs on the verandah were being tossed about cross the flooring, the rain was intense, just bucketing down, made worse by the force of the wind and all the debris hitting the house.
i didnt want to risk my life going downstairs to get my work camera, so i got out the handycam and just started filming when the power went out, we were left with just a faint glow from the lounge room lights, the clock on the microwave. everything else died. so all i have on film is 15seconds of wind.
by this time i dont mind admiting i was scared, worried about the house and family. i was actually shaking.
finally of course it died down and i couldnt see much due to lack of power.
house was littered with debris, outside furniture tossed about, and the trampoline relocated 20m to be wedged onto the clothes line.
but our house was fine. and only some minor structural damage to guttering.
first light i went outside to start shooting for work. turned into Tregaskis and relised i didnt have to go far at all. it was a nightmare. 200m down the road from my place the 1st house i came across had lost its roof. the owner invited me in to get shots and he was devestated as you can imagine. his housemate spoke to me on camera aswell, he had gone stairs at the time and hung onto the conrete house pylon to save himself. the two cars in the front yard were smashed, both cars were moved off the driveway by the wind and onto the grass. the power pole out front was snapped in half 1m off the ground. the entire street was littered with iron, house debris, whirlybirds, light fittings, downed trees. etc.
after a while i worked my way onto palmerston street and couldnt believe the damage. was like a cat 4 cyclone had swept through. it was a this stage i was certain it was a tornado.
house after house was so badly damaged i was just about in tears thinking about the poor people. there were people i didnt know but had obviously passed in the street, or seen them mowing their lawns, or the like. and here they all were with lost possesions, ruined homes and belongings. and they all need a place to live and to restart.
one woman broke down in tears and cried on her knees in front of me while filming. the look of shock on the locals faces as they all ventured out as daylight struck.
finally the realisation was taking place and the emergency services were arriving on scene. the scanner was full of incidents and priorities were being given. first thing the police did was block the local roads to stop people sightseeing. live powerlines where still down.
and the rest you have all probably seen on the news footage through the day. i feel both lucky, proud, sad and devestated all at once that I went through this. more lucky that my house and family are ok. Of course as part of my job, the footage has gone across the country today spreading the word about how hard townsville was hit. i even did 3 live phone crosses in the morning, which was a personally 'great' achievement for a lowly cameraman!
sorry it was a long story. but nice to be able to write it down. i will try and post some photos soon.
cheers,
Mick

I have to agree with you trav it was mind blowing to see the pictures it does deserve its own thread, and you missed it all.

How freaky is this;

Cylcone Larry - Innisfail 20.3.2006
Cyclone Ului - Aile Beach/Mackay 20-21.3.2010
Tornado - Townsville - 20.3.2012

that is pretty strange 20th of march all of them

Great video guys!

Great story Mick, thanks for sharing

it was a great story mick, and the scary bit is no one new it was coming, it must have be a shock waking up to that.

Part 2 investigation - garbutt industrial area

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ItfViY2y...SHq9ZH_3ZUWtgw=

Some basic video of the surrounding streets on the round trip to school this morning:

Cambridge Street, Vincent.


Fulham Road, Vincent.


Dalrymple Service Road, Vincent.

How close were you to the circulation dee

I would say just on the outer edge of the destructive core (I'm in the next court up from Mick off Tregaskis)....

Let's just say I was close enough that water hammered in my toilet window so hard (you know those ridiculous, louvre ones you can't close) and spent the morning wiping mud off the bathroom ceiling and surrounding walls.

lol dee, we have the same problem, leaf and dirt flew through our toilet and bathroom windows too, except our mud is still there!!

Hahaha Mick ... I also found a random twig under our dining table. Must've blown in through the back door in the split second we opened it to save my laptop.

Excellent work Trav, Nitso and NQ Dee. Looking forward to seeing the final result of the survey. I would say this is one of those cases where there is little ambiguity to the cause of the damage. Certainly not straight-line wind damage and together with the somewhat favourable conditions leaves little doubt in my mind that this was a tornado. I am not suprised by the lack of photos/visual reports of a funnel/tornado since it must of been obscured by rain and the LCL was extremely low.

the damage is incredible 388 stories for townsville tornado

http://tiny.cc/gqxgbw

a few youtube videos this one shows alot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fboj4ogkhUY&feature=related

the damage is definatley up their with some of the US ones while it wasnt a high category tornado
the damage appears unusually widespread almost like a hyrid tornado cyclone

Mc Thomas it was also 5am and completely dark, so I think we have no way at all of having a visual on the circulation.

a news story says possibly three deaths was their any? , the army has been called in, looks like thousands of structures suffering some kind of damage, if it was in peak hour it would have been a major disaster

we were also out of power and no lights to shoot with.


pictures from today
Tregaskis Street Vincent, roof colapsed in. Note holes in the walls. Also note, the yellow car was parked behind the black one. it was moved by the wind.

Tregaskis Street Vincent.

Palm Tree snapped in half, survived Yasi but not 10min of a tornado!

Power pole snapped 1m off the ground in Tregaskis Street Vincent

Palmerston Street wide shot

Close up, house torn apart, roof and walls. Kitchen, bedrooms, lounge all torn open. family sheltered in bathroom, only part of house still with roof.