Weather to evacuate?

Abstract

In February 2011, Cyclone Yasi was bearing down on the Queensland coast near Cairns. People living in coastal suburbs and towns from Cairns to Townsville were given orders to evacuate their homes, airlines put on extra flights to help people evacuate, and Queensland Health made the decision to evacuate Cairns hospitals for the first time in history. Cairns Base Hospital was established in 1884 on the waterfront overlooking the Coral Sea. The hospital's location leaves it vulnerable to cyclones, tsunamis and storm surges. Based on the Bureau of Meteorology's cyclone tracking model, Yasi's landfall was predicted to coincide with high tide, which put hospital staff and patients at risk of inundation by a 5-metre storm surge. On Tuesday 1 February, more than 250 patients from Cairns Base Hospital and the nearby Cairns Private Hospital were airlifted to Brisbane hospitals in what is believed to be Queensland's largest mass medical evacuation and the largest hospital evacuation ever undertaken in Australia.