Thousands of north Queenslanders are hunkered down in shelters and homes waiting for the most powerful cyclone in nearly a century to slam into the coast south of Cairns.
To keep up to date with warnings, stay on track with the Queensland Police via Twitter and Facebook.
Category five tropical Cyclone Yasi should make landfall between Innisfail and Cardwell around 11pm (AEST) on Wednesday, with authorities confident they have picked the spot within a 30km range of accuracy.
The cyclone is powered by winds of 295km/h, and gusts have already brought down trees, ruined weather monitoring equipment on Willis Island, off Cairns, and taken out power at Airlie Beach, Ayr and Townsville.
Yasi will cross the coast on the high tide, with an accompanying storm surge expected to engulf low-lying areas. At Cardwell the surge could build to seven metres, and at Townsville up to three metres.
Yasi's size means its force will be felt a long way inland. The storm is forecast to maintain category three force as it passes over Georgetown - 300km inland - at 7am (AEST) on Thursday.
Flooding rains will fall between Cooktown and Sarina, moving inland. Premier Anna Bligh said Yasi could be more destructive than the last cyclone of the same magnitude, which crossed the coast in 1918. That year, two devastating cyclones hit Mackay and then Innisfail, decimating the two towns and killing more than 100 people between them.
"This impact is likely to be more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations," Ms Bligh told reporters in Brisbane.
"This is an event that we have no recent experience of." More than 10,680 people have fled to 20 evacuation centres, while tens of thousands more are holed up in their homes and those of family or friends.
They have been warned they will be on their own during the storm and to take their safety seriously.
State disaster co-ordinator Ian Stewart has stressed emergency services will not be able to respond to triple-0 calls during the storm, as their own safety must be guaranteed.
People should huddle in the safest room of their home, likely to be the bathroom or toilet, with mattresses, food, water and raincoats and be prepared for the worst, Mr Stewart said.
"They should be preparing themselves for the fact that the roofs of their houses may lift off but that does not make the structure or the framework of the house any less sound," he said.
"They get wet, but it is far more dangerous to panic and run out of the house than to stay bunkered down in that area and simply get a bit wet."
Authorities have warned people not to go outside during the period of calm that means they are in the eye of the cyclone.
The lull could last for more than one hour, but the storm would return to its worst afterwards.
Many in northern Queensland spent Wednesday morning making last-minute preparations, stocking up on food, cash, water, petrol and even buying out beer stocks at bottle shops.
The seaside tourist town of Cardwell was deserted. At Innisfail, Crown Hotel publican Max Wallace described the rain as torrential. "People are very, very frightened at this moment," he told AAP.
"... Everyone's taped their windows, and everyone is just sitting back now, listening to radios and TVs to get an outlook on what's going on."
Cairns resident Anna Kris is one of thousands who will ride out the storm in an evacuation centre.
"The fear is just below the belt and were trying to keep it there," she told AAP. Townsville's Ian Hollins will hunker down in his home, which he spent $50,000 to make cyclone-proof in the 1980s. "If mine goes, everyone's goes," he told AAP.
"The only thing I'm worried about is the flying debris."
Authorities say flood-weary Queensland is prepared for Yasi, with hundreds of emergency services and defence personnel ready to go into action.
The plans extend to the possibility that offshore bases may be needed in the aftermath, with the navy prepared to bring ships to the coast if necessary, as they did during the response to the Asian tsunami of 2004.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has warned Yasi would probably be the worst cyclone ever to hit Australia.
She said Queenslanders were about to face "many, many dreadful, frightening hours". "In the hours of destruction that are coming to them, all of Australia is going to be thinking of them," she said.
The federal government was ready to send any help required. e said.
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