Residents of northern Queensland, Australia, woke on Thursday morning to destruction wrought by Cyclone Yasi, the biggest storm to ever hit the region.
"It was absolutely terrifying," said Frank Russo, a journalist for the Innisfail Advocate who was in the town of Garradunga, a suburb of Innisfail, around 24 miles (40 kilometers) north of the eye of the storm. With winds gusting up to 186 miles per hour (300 kilometers per hour), Russo was with his parents in their two-story "Queenslander"-style house when the category 5 storm hit.