Satnav you have been banging the wrong drum here since day 1. First trying to convince people "it wasn't that bad", and, in terms of cost and damage it actually is the biggest system every to hit the Qld coast, if not the entire country when the costs are finally established. Now you seem to want to be an expert of managing off shore resorts and evacuation procedures, and, again, you are wrong. Well thought out policies are in place with guests given options right up until lock down occurs. This was, bear in mind, on the advice of BOM and the experts, supposed to Hit Ayr and Townsville. We have had a direct hit by Cat 4 Uilu in 2010? and came through relatively unscathed, lost of a lot of unprepared boats and lost power for 2 days. This one was different. Still no power in much of the area on day 13, unprecedented damage to marine infrastructure, Hamilton Island and the fleet. Damage to daydream and Hayman not seen sine ADA in 1970, and, all this, from a cat 4 that was going to cross the coast some 100 ks north. No loss of life from any of the islands, or mainland area is testimony to good cyclone shelter planning, not the opposite. The islands can not be evacuated to the mainland. The majority of accommodation is in the red and orange zones and had been evacuated, few if any hire cars, buses out were full, so what would YOU do. Drop a couple of thousand people and tourists in transit in Airlie Beach and tell them to just tie themselves to a coconut tree and hang on tight?
No doubt a major debrief will occur with all the relavent authorities and stake holders in the coming weeks and some things will be planned to do better, but, some things, like this cyclone, are just too much to actually plan for and better to be ready to react to. If we went in to "Debbie" mode, every time a cyclone was forecast to hit Townville or Ayr it would be economic suicide. Planning to make sure guests are safe, property is well prepared, staff are safe and being generally ready is usually sufficient and the industry can "usually" be back up and running within a few days. As I have said, this one, is different.