So Unnecessary
The ABC reported this morning on the first known Yasi-related fatality: Generator fumes kill man during Yasi
A man died after suffocating on generator fumes during Cyclone Yasi, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has confirmed.
Ms Bligh said the 23-year old man died after being overwhelmed by fumes from the diesel generator he was using while sheltering in a small room in Bambaroo, near Ingham.
Authorities are still searching for three people missing in the wake of the massive category five storm, which destroyed homes and shredded crops as it roared ashore south of Innisfail on Wednesday night.
Ms Bligh says two people are missing in the badly damaged town of Cardwell, while police are searching for a man who was reported missing near Port Hinchinbrook after trying to move his yacht out of the way of a storm surge.
We lose people down here after almost every storm from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by generators. There are public service announcements about it before storms and a mass of warning material with every generator sold, but it just doesn’t seem to register.
As for the guy trying to move his boat – you have to wonder where he thought he was going to move it to? Yasi was hundreds of miles across, so if that boat didn’t have a couple of jet engines on board, there was no way of getting it away from the storm.
