They were the first to bear the brunt of tropical cyclone Alfred. Almost five days on, the clean-up continues on the Moreton Bay islands with power and internet still being restored.
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00:00The idyllic beaches of North Stradbroke Island carved away, a lingering impact of tropical
00:08cyclone Alfred.
00:12Point Lookout was the hardest hit by big swells and wild wind.
00:17Truckloads of fallen trees and debris are still being removed.
00:23Melanie Lawler has 60 holiday rentals on the island.
00:27She's been fixing up the properties to get tourists back.
00:31We've actually got three new bookings for this weekend, which I thought was amazing.
00:34So come to Straddy, we'd love to see you.
00:36Some holidaymakers who rescheduled their trips returned to the island today.
00:41Yeah, I'm just glad the sun's shining.
00:43The area's main grocer is up and running.
00:48Power has just returned after being out for days.
00:52It's still without internet, meaning it's cash only.
00:56Since the eye passed, power went out and then all hell just broke loose.
01:00I think we lost mobile communications the following morning and still haven't had it
01:03since then and just no update about when it's happening.
01:06Thousands of dollars of produce was lost.
01:10You know, loss of trade as well.
01:11By the time we come out of this, we're talking about, you know, we're hundreds of thousands
01:15of dollars in the red.
01:16The cleanup efforts are in full swing here on North Stradbroke Island, with life almost
01:22back to normal.
01:23Power and essential services are being restored, but other Southern Bay Island residents are
01:29still in the dark.
01:30It's a bit of a strain on the whole family actually, you know, everyone's stressed out,
01:35the kids are bored.
01:36It's up and down each day.
01:38The mayor says the Bay Islands haven't been forgotten.
01:41I know island residents have indicated they've been feeling left out.
01:45We've been working really hard to get those services back on for them.
01:48She expects there'll be lessons around outages to phone and internet services.
01:54And we really need more investment in our local area to ensure that when we go through
01:57things like this, we still maintain as best we can the connectivity with our residents
02:02because without that, we don't know what's going on.