Cyclone Yasi: 'We were lucky'

The people of north-eastern Australia are inspecting the damage after the area was hit by Cyclone Yasi.

Winds of 180 miles-an-hour ripped the roofs off buildings, and cut the power to 180,000 people.

Queensland residents have been sharing their experiences and describe the destruction it caused.

Philip Baker, Cairns

"The worst case scenario didn't happen"

The situation is pretty good. It looks like Cairns dodged it, or at least the worst of it.

There's lots of greenery down, branches and trees, but it's not as bad as was predicted.

The worst case scenario didn't happen - we were lucky.

We're taking the tape off the windows and fishing the palm fronds out of the swimming pool.

There's no great damage here, certainly not as bad as when Larry came through, which uprooted trees.

We're still without power. I can see a power line down outside our house - there's still a lot of overhead power cables here - but not all of Cairns has been cut off.

The phone lines stayed up throughout.

I'm hoping that we'll have power over at the shop which is in the west of the city. But if the worst is that we're without power for a couple of days, I think we'll manage.

I could really do with a shower though.

David Manuel, Townsville

My wife and I spent the night at my daughter's house, where the electricity is still working - we've had it throughout.

Everything is fine now. The wind has come up again but the danger has gone. Now it's just the clean-up that we have to think about.

Apparently only 10-15% of houses in Townsville have electricity now - my own house lost power too. The main problem is actually the damage caused by the trees and falling branches.

The other problem we are faced with is the possibility of running out of water. The lack of power means that the water treatment plant has shut down.

However, we are very relieved - the wind was blowing very strongly last night but there was nothing we could do but sit and hope for the best.

Claire Thomas, Edmonton

It is calmer. Now we just have torrential rains and lots of thunder and lightning.

We were extremely lucky last night.

A lot of stuff was thrown around but nothing big. We have a huge mango tree in the back garden and a branch came down.

It was scary enough and we kept expecting it to get worse and so we were extremely lucky.

I am glad to be alive.

We were well prepared though so that helped.

I think the day before was more scary and we were all very panicky because we weren't sure what to expect.

But when it actually happened it wasn't that bad.