Cyclone Anthony [and Friend]

When we first moved to the Burdekin, knowing it was a cyclone area, I was interested in gauging from the locals how seriously they took the cyclone threat, to know how seriously I should take it. Cyclones didn't come up in conversation very often, and when they did the locals talked about them quite matter-of-factly, about the bakery roof that blew and landed on the church roof, and then they changed subject.

I assumed from this that the locals were quite used to cyclones and that they weren't too big an issue. I was wrong. They spoke of cyclone so dispassionately not because they were trivial but because they didn't want to relive the deep trauma.

When one cyclone finally parked itself off the coast, and threatened to head our way, the mood changed. People started to tell stories of previous cyclone and the fear was palpable. Grown men, the Hairy, tattooed, biker type - openly shared how they virtually sat in the corner crying for their mummies. I don't want to make light of the situation - but blokes who I thought would be afraid of nothing, even if it was misguided bravado, would openly share of their utter terror. It certainly put the frights up me [who has no tattoos and is scared of riding motorbikes].

The stories of houses disintegrating, the screams of metal, the impaling wooden posts. Locals rightly fear cyclone. It like riding on a freight train off it's tracks, down the side of a mountain. You can do nothing. You are not in control. You can only hold onto your family and pray to God. Locals are amazed not more people have died in the past, having been through it. Many don't know how even they survived.

So with Anthony [and possible friend] hanging off our shores, and the BOM telling us they are coming - we are praying and preparing. It's good to have heard the stories of locals, as unsettling as they are, or else a Jonny-come-lately to the district could approach the threat with nonchalant fascination. They have put the fear of God into me - and that's they way it should be.

Does God bring these disasters? I don't believe so. They are a natural part of the world as it is. But they remind us of the awe-someness of God; If this is what the wind, the wind God created can do, what could God do? They remind us of our place in the world. That we are really not in control of anything. That submission and prayer should be our natural state.

Praying that people take this wind seriously, and that God keeps an eye out for us.