The Australian Defence Force will help survey cyclone-hit towns in central Queensland today as the region begins counting the cost of Cyclone Marcia.
Only the sixth recorded category five cyclone Australia has seen, Marcia left a swathe of destruction through Central Queensland as wild 285km/h winds whipped through the coastal town of Yeppoon.
It was still at category three level when it hit the much bigger city of Rockhampton in the afternoon, leaving residents to marvel at the noise and venom of the storm.
But while some low-lying houses were destroyed, roofs ripped off and trees torn apart, emergency personnel could still sigh a sense of relief as the damage was far less than first feared.
There were no reports of deaths or injuries and the storm was downgraded to a category 2 by evening. But authorities warned heavy rains and flooding were likely to continue for several days and extend inland.
More than 50,000 properties in the area were left without power by Friday night when damage assessments were well under way but the underlying message is it could have been much worse.
When Marcia was creeping towards landfall near Shoalwater Bay before 8am, Police Commissioner Ian Stewart warned a "calamity" was on its way while Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told central Queenslanders to be braced for a terrifying and harrowing ordeal.
The gale-force winds and torrential rain ensured it was terrifying but in the end many were counting their lucky stars Marcia crossed the coast at the largely uninhabited Shoalwater Bay before gradually losing intensity.
"It's just a big plot of land essentially with not much there," Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Jess Carey told AAP.
"To be honest, it was probably an excellent place for a Category 5 cyclone to land because it is relatively sparsely populated, but we still saw very significant winds around Rockhampton and Yeppoon."
Marcia was a category four storm when it "grazed" Yeppoon on Friday morning but was downgraded to category three about 1pm as it hit Rockhampton.
Rockhampton resident Chris Schwarten said the storm was wild, and ripped his clothes line out of the ground.
"The whole house was rocking for about an hour," he told AAP.
"A lot of trees have snapped right off."
Several Great Keppel Island homes crumbled into the sea as cyclonic winds and waves battered the holiday destination off the coast of Yeppoon.
Suzy Watson, on Kinka Beach, said the noise of the wind gusts had been hard to believe.
"You know how people say it sounds like a freight train? This sounds like 100 freight trains," Ms Watson told AAP.
Ms Palaszczuk said authorities would have a better picture of the impact on Saturday.
"We'll have helicopters in the area and also there is a request in with the Australian Defence Force and they will also be carrying out an assessment of the damage in the areas around Rockhampton and Yeppoon," she said on Friday afternoon.
The Disaster Recovery Committee will hold a meeting at 10am.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Meteorology predicts Marcia will be downgraded to a tropical low about lunch time on Saturday.
In the neighbouring Northern Territory, emergency service officials were beginning to assess the damage caused by Cyclone Lam that made landfall in the remote region east of Darwin.
The category 4 storm hit near the settlement of Ramingining, where residents were beginning to emerge to inspect the damage. Communications had been cut with tiny Elcho Island, which was believed to have experienced widespread damage, police said.
By evening, Lam had been downgraded to a tropical low but continued to dump heavy rain across the north as it moved southwest.
- additional reporting Reuters
