Hurricane/Cyclone/Typhoon Journal Entry

Cyclone Slams Australia (March 22, 2006)

One of the fiercest storms to hit Australia in decades slammed its northeastern coast this week. Category 5 Cyclone Larry pounded the coast with screaming winds that reached speeds as high as 180 miles per hour (250 kilometers per hour).

The violent storm tore roofs from homes, snapped trees like toothpicks, knocked out power, and triggered widespread floods. Hundreds of people lost their homes.

The storm also pounded the fragile Great Barrier Reef, already taking a beating from coral bleaching. Biologists fear much of the reef suffered heavy damages.

On land, much of the storm's fury was focused on the Innisfal region, where hundreds of houses were destroyed and vast stretches of crops such as bananas and sugar cane were wiped out. Blackouts in the area affected about 50,000 people. There was also a threat from disoriented crocodiles and snakes in habitat disturbed by the cyclone.

Larry is the most powerful storm to strike Australia since Cyclone Tracey, which killed 40 people in the northern city of Darwin on Christmas Day 1974.