CAIRNS, Australia | Thousands of people fled Tuesday from the path of a monster storm bearing down on northeastern Australia that officials warned was almost certain to cause widespread damage and could turn deadly in a state still suffering from massive floods.
Hospitals in the tourist gateway of Cairns emptied as military evacuation flights ferried the ill and elderly to safety far south from a long stretch of Queensland state’s tropical coast that is in the path of Cyclone Yasi. Residents packed onto commercial flights that were added to allow them to leave.
The Cairns airport was scheduled to close Wednesday as Yasi approached.
“We’re in the process of packing up boxes, … the dogs and the pet snake and getting out of here,” Cairns resident Melissa Lovejoy told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. She said the family decided to leave their home near the coast for a friend’s place that was sturdier and farther inland after getting a phone call and a text message warning residents to leave by Tuesday night.
The cyclone was forecast to hit the coast late Wednesday or early Thursday with wind gusts of about 155 mph, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
Carla Jenkins, a 23-year-old Cairns resident and flight attendant, was feeling jittery as her plane coasted to a halt at the Cairns airport Tuesday night. Ms. Jenkins lived through Cyclone Larry, which slammed into the region in 2006, and feared Yasi would be even more brutal.
“One of the scariest things I remember [from Larry] was on the radio, they said, ’Fear for your life,’ ” said Ms. Jenkins, who was planning to ride out the storm in her house. “I’ve got a feeling this is going to be worse. So I’m just a bit freaked out.”
Forecasters said up to 3 feet of rain could fall on some coastal communities. Many parts of Queensland state already are saturated from months of flooding, though the worst floods hit areas hundreds of miles farther south of the towns in the immediate path of Yasi.
Still, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said residents along the coast needed to prepare.
“It’s such a big storm — it’s a monster, killer storm that it’s not just about where this crosses the coast that is at risk,” Ms. Bligh said.
“I know many of us will feel that Queensland has already borne about as much as we can bear when it comes to disasters and storms,” she said. “But more is being asked of us.”
Cairns, a city of about 164,000 people and a gateway for visitors to the Great Barrier Reef, was expected to bear the brunt of the storm. But wind warnings of various degrees of strength were issued for a stretch of coast about 1,000 miles long, from the remote community Cape Melville to the port city of Gladstone.
In Cairns, more than 9,000 people in low-lying and coastal areas were ordered to evacuate their homes as the sea is expected to surge at least 6 1/2 feet and flood significant parts of the city.
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