Ita's trail

“Four or five houses have lost their roofs and the West Coast Hotel had its entire roof peeled off and many homes and building suffered awning and/or wall damage from flying debris but it could have been a lot worse,” Ms Sullivan said.

She said that Ergon Energy had sent an extra 50 personnel into the Cook shire to restore power and it was hoped that most all of the Shire including Hopevale and Wujal Wujal would have mains power restored by Wednesday and the rest of the Cook Shire by the end of the week.

Many outlying communities were still cut off at the time the North Queensland Register spoke with Ms Sullivan including Rossville and Helenvale and all roads needed extreme care to travel over.

There was hope that mains water would be again available on Monday night (April 14)

MS Sullivan said Cyclone Ita had dropped intensity from a category-4 cyclone to around a category-3 strength by the time it passed over Cooktown.

Further south at Mareeba Cyclone Ita was much of an anti-climax after the earlier build-up with not a lot rain and very little wind. At the time this edition went to print no reports of damage had been received from Mareeba-Atherton district.

The cyclone was downgraded to a category-one storm as it tracked its way down the coast, but still had enough strength to flatten sugar cane and banana crops in some districts.

Torrential downpours along the coast from Cooktown to South of Mackay delivered totals more than 300 millimetres of rain in some towns, including 376 millimetres at Nash's Crossing and 250 in Townsville in a 24-hour period.

The Bruce Highway was closed in several places and Ingham was cut off north and south of the town for three days. On Monday fine weather and blue skies returned to the North’s holiday destinations from Port Douglas to Townsville and Tourism Port Douglas and Daintree executive officer Doug Ryan declared the district “open for business.”