How Yasi — ‘the mother of all cyclones’ — improved Queensland’s natural disaster response

Cardwell resident Robyn Smith remembers a creeping sense of dread as she watched Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi approach the Far North Queensland coast 10 years ago.

“The police were going around the back streets — it sounded like World War III — on their microphones going, ‘This is a mandatory evacuation’,” Ms Smith said.

“This thing … could swallow up Queensland and it was coming for us, and I realised that life wasn’t going be the same tomorrow.”

Ms Smith hunkered down in a bathroom with six others and a dog while the category five system bore down overhead.

“We knew that the house upstairs had…