The Storms Within the Storm
Well the low that hung around to the north of Fraser Island has finally gone and our regular summer weather has returned to Hervey Bay but the fallout from the storm looks as though it will linger for quite some time.
The tourist operators on Fraser Island are very unhappy that tourists on the island were forced to leave at the height of the storm and of course once they left few bothered to return once the conditions improved. The operators’ position seems to be that the evacuation of the tourists was something that was completely unnecessary for there were sheltered campsites on the island that the campers could have moved to.
Whether the decision to evacuate was a wise one to make in the circumstances is probably something that will never be resolved. It’s always far better to err on the side of caution than to make a decision that could rely on luck more than anything else.
Here in Hervey Bay there are tourist operators who are more than a little unhappy that nothing was done to promote Hervey Bay as an alternative for holidaymakers who wanted to have a good time despite the storm. Certainly there were big seas and wild weather on the east coast of Fraser Island but here in Hervey Bay the water remained relatively calm but the message that Hervey Bay was the place to come to … and that there were vacancies around town … was never made known.
Newspapers, radio and television were all too busy having a field day with tales of wild weather mass evacuations and no one was bothering to promote the calm conditions in Hervey Bay. Some local tourist operators are beginning to wonder why the Fraser Coast South Burnett Regional Tourism Board didn’t step up to the mark and make it known that Hervey Bay was still a great place to come to even though a storm was raging up and down the coast.
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