THE Aboriginal community of Palm Island was not evacuated before the arrival of Cyclone Yasi, despite people at neighbouring islands leaving days earlier.

Former mayor and community leader Robert Blackley said while resorts on Orpheus and Dunk islands had self-evacuated efficiently, the Government had left the Palm Island residents to fend for themselves.

"When offshore islands started to be evacuated we all went, 'Well, we're an island offshore, what about us?','' he said. "We thought maybe the army would fly some planes in and evacuate women and children at least, but that didn't happen.''

Mr Blackley said evacuation facilities on the island itself were inadequate, with three of the four centres within range of the storm surge due to poor planning.

Despite this, he said the Government sent no boats or planes to evacuate residents, and while other communities in the area had been getting community announcements and visits from authorities, Palm Island had been ignored.



"To tell you the truth I never saw a single community advert. I saw nothing, there was no flyer, no doorknock, no SES guy, no police officer,'' Mr Blackley said. "I guess we just missed the boat, figuratively and literally on this occasion.''

He said the local ferry company had sent one ferry with a capacity of 250 passengers to help evacuate the community of about 3500.

But Mr Blackley said only around 70 people took the opportunity to leave to the mainland.

"Not many people got on it, I think mainly because they don't have the monetary resources to go to Townsville and look after themselves,'' he said.

But Palm Island's current Mayor Alf Lacey said it was misleading and unhelpful of Mr Blackley to suggest that Palm Island had been neglected.

"Giving those wrong messages out to the wider public is probably not useful when you're trying to unite the community around an event like this,'' he said, adding that the community had been preparing for Cyclone Yasi since before Cyclone Anthony struck the coast on January 30, and was well prepared.

Bad news just in. The evac centre in Innisfail has lost it's roof. Has 500 ppl inside. No injuries to date but worst still to come

Maybe we can destroy Cyclone Yasi using Julie Bishop's 'death stare.' It worked on that asteroid in Armageddon!