Cyclone Rusty - Western Australia

[smoooth2]

A little self indulgence with this post, as I'm a Western Australian boy, but it may also be of interest to all Aussies, and anyone else with a thirst for General Knowledge of far away places.

Tropical Cyclone Rusty looks like it will hit Port Hedland tomorrow night. (Typhoon in Asia - Hurricane in America)

It's currently Category 3 (225 kmph winds), but is intensifying to Category 4 (280kmph winds) tomorrow.

Average 5 cyclones cross this section of coast Nov-Mar each year. Fortunately this 1000km stretch of coast is mainly pastoral cattle station country, with very few towns, and most of the cyclones only cause flooding and road closures for a few weeks.

This is the biggest cyclone this Summer season, and unfortunately looks like it will cross right over Port Hedland township.

Pt Hedland has 20,000 people and is a major iron ore export port, sending 240,000,000 tonnes to China, Japan and Korea each year. 3,000,000 of salt is also annually exported from PH.

The port can accommodate about 12 ships of 260,000 tonnes each, at one time. I've been to PH many times, and have counted up to 18 ships at anchor out in the channel awaiting their turn in the port. It's a really busy place !!

260,000 tonnes is a seriously big ship. The biggest cruise liners are the twin sisters Allure of the Seas and Oasis of the Seas at 226,000 tonnes each.

Anyway ... Cyclone Rusty has the potential to do some very serious damage tomorrow, not only in the port, but to the rail and stockpile infrastructure with the expected extreme heavy rainfall and winds. There is a network of railways extending 450km inland to where the iron ore mines are located, and much of that rail network will be severely damaged.

There are 2 other iron ore ports 200km SW of Port Hedland, also each exporting over 200,000,000 tonnes annually. Port Samson and Dampier. They might be lucky this time and get away with minor flooding.

The iron ore export industry was largely responsible for keeping Australia's head above the water during the GFC. The $$$$ involved are absolutely massive, so any impact like a cyclone, has major short term ramifications.

Anyway ... fingers crossed for the communities that will be affected Tue & Wed.

My TGF tells me that "crossing fingers" in Thailand has the direct opposite meaning to Western culture, and is a very bad luck thing ??  Phwrrrr !!

Thanks for reading all the above waffle. Hope it was a little bit interesting.