Tedious Yasi Aftermath

Bleak times come to sunny Queensland:

TINS of tepid baked beans and spaghetti devoured by torchlight have become a post-disaster delicacy for Cardwell cyclone survivor Pauline McFaul.

The commercial fisherwoman, who broke a rib when Cyclone Yasi blasted open a door and hurled her 3m across the bedroom, is among tens of thousands of north Queensland residents facing weeks in the dark.

"Since the storm hit, I have just been living by torchlight," she said yesterday. "And I tell you, I go to bed pretty soon after dark, because there's nothing else to do apart from listening to the radio.

"Baked beans and spaghetti are my new favourite food - they'll get me by."

With one in six north Queensland households still blacked out, power companies have deployed an army of 2000 technicians in a race to repair the region's ruined electricity network. But after a week without fridges, lights, televisions or airconditioning, some customers are losing patience.

...Electrical Trades Union co-ordinator Trevor Gauld said some customers had reached the point of verbally abusing electricity maintenance staff to work faster. "Workers have had people banging on their trucks and yelling, 'You pricks intending to do anything?' " Mr Gauld said.

..."It's pretty hurtful because these guys are working 12 hours a day to restore power when their own families are without."

...In Townsville, Ergon aims to have the power back tomorrow - too late for restaurateur Michel Flores, who had up to $20,000 worth of food spoil. His French restaurant, Michel's, is one of three still blacked out on inner-city Palmer Street, where other businesses had their underground power supply restored last Friday.

..."We've already thrown all our food out - probably $20,000 in meats, seafood, bugs and prawns," he said. "We had stocked up on meat because of the floods; we knew we were going to have problems getting it in.