Australia Weather News

Dennis Garrett was holidaying on Hamilton Island for a family wedding when Tropical Cyclone Debbie hit.

He was staying with his wife and two young daughters, 5 and 2, in a house on the western side of the island when Debbie arrived, bringing wind gusts of up to 263 kilometres per hour.

His house suffered minor damage in the storm. When he ventured out on one of the resort's buggies this morning to check on family, he found a different story.

"We probably did pretty well considering some of the other places are pretty devastating," he said.

Around the marina, the commercial centre of the island, he said many shops had extensive damage.

"There's a lot of broken glass and awnings that have fallen down, a lot of trees that are strewn across the roads that the services guys are cleaning up," he said.

On the eastern side of the island, which is much less sheltered, there was more.

"As we went over the hill to the other side, a lot of the roads are almost blocked off because of the debris. There's buggies kind of on their sides," he said.

Mr Garrett said his house never lost power during the cyclone, but they did lose water in the morning.

About that time, some other holidaymakers were getting out and about to get breakfast and supplies.

"Because no-one really has any internet connection, no-one knows whether they should be out or not," he said.

"But most people are out walking and there are lots of buggies flying around.

"I think everyone is in good spirits. There's no real tears or anything. I think people are just getting out and are probably quite shocked to see the damage that happened.

"It was pretty relentless. For a good 12 to 18 hours people were just bunkered down and the winds were just really, really incredible," he said.

Mr Garrett said the Reef View Hotel had opened its restaurant and was handing out sandwiches to other residents.

Elsewhere, workers were assessing the damage to the island's marina and airport.

"The workers just have their heads down cleaning up," he said.

"There's people out on the marina checking out the boats — there's quite a lot of boats that have washed up on the rocks. It's pretty bad.

"I can see some apartment blocks where the roofs have been ripped off."

Mermaids wash away, roof lifts off building on Daydream Island

Daydream Island, about 18 kilometres north-west of Hamilton, is also counting its losses after enduring a lashing.

In a statement, Daydream Island Resort and Spa said it and surrounding areas had borne the brunt of the cyclone.

"Conditions were extreme with heavy rainfall and strong wind gusts causing damage to the resort and surrounds," it said.

It said all guests and staff were safe and accounted for, but its property and facilities had been affected.

Two of the resort's three iconic mermaid statues were swept away, its jetty and pontoons were damaged and a section of boardwalk was lifted.

The resort said the roof of its spa was also lifted, and "the force of the driving rain" caused general water damage to some of its accommodation.

Former ABC journalist Jessica Swann, who is on Daydream Island, said it was running low on water.

She said the resort's managers were planning to evacuate the island.

"There's no toilets, there's no taps, there's nothing like that," she said.

"So what they're going to do is they're intending to get us all off the island. At this stage they haven't advised how they are going do that, because as you would be aware the Queensland Marine Authority still has waterways closed, understandably."

When asked on Facebook about the condition of the marine animals housed in its on-site reef, the resort said all were OK.

"At this stage all Living Reef animals are OK and don't worry we will do everything possible to rescue the Mermaids!" it said.

"The resort's priority at the moment is the ongoing safety of on-island guests and staff who will need to be taken off the island as soon as practical," the statement read.