Australian Residents, Tourists Brave Cyclone Larry

The storm reached Category 5 status just before making landfall Monday near Innisfail, Australia, a popular jumping-off point for travelers heading to the Great Barrier Reef. Meteorologists say that Larry’s winds reached up to 290 kilometers per hour (about 180 miles per hour), making it one of the most savage storms ever recorded. Preliminary reports indicate a lot of property damage but no fatalities. CNN, among others, has details. It’s too soon, however, to tell how the Great Barrier Reef fared.

The storm passed directly over the heavily-touristed World Heritage site, and teams will be dispatched to check damage in the coming days. I can only imagine the damage will be great. I visited the Reef in the mid-90s, just a few weeks after a major storm, and I remember areas of the coral looking like they’d been absolutely crushed.

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