Victims remember Yasi five years on

Five years after Cyclone Yasi ripped through parts of north Queensland, townships are still dealing with the trauma it left behind.

A blanket of grey, a noise like a giant hammer and the ocean in the air.

This is what north Queensland cafe owner Terry Duncan remembers about the hours during which Cyclone Yasi ravaged his town five years ago.

The category five storm smashed into the coast between Innisfail and Cardwell in the very early hours of February 3, 2011 and went on to destroy hundreds of homes and damage thousands more.

Cardwell, where Mr Duncan, his wife and 11 others were sheltering in the storey above his beachfront cafe, was among the most devastated townships.

Mr Duncan says he could hear the wind hitting the concrete walls of his home "like someone with a big hammer" during the storm.

Outside, the world had turned an ominous grey.

"There was just so much ocean everywhere ... it just picks it up and blows it," he told AAP.

"We had friends ringing us basically saying goodbye because they thought they were going to die."

In the half-decade since the monstrous storm, bitumen has been relaid, the foreshore has been rebuilt and a lot of the leaves have grown back in Cardwell.

But Mr Duncan says residents are still dealing with the psychological effects of Yasi.

Local businesses are also dealing with a mass exodus of locals, who never returned after the storm.

"I think there's a lot of trauma in the town," he said.

"My wife doesn't like helicopters any longer because they were the first things to come in after the cyclone."

Yasi was the first cyclone to reach 700km inland and flattened much of the state's sugar cane and banana plantations.

It also contributed to soaring premiums in north Queensland, after insurers were hit with $1.3 billion-worth of claims.