'Trees like matchsticks'
Yasi made landfall at Mission Beach about midnight (AEST) when it was still a category five tropical cyclone.
Photographer Brad Ambrose, who witnessed the cyclone from his resort in the town, said the cyclone's winds were more intense than anything he had felt before.
"The only thing I can compare it to is standing on the wing of a 747 while it is going 600km/h. There's an undulating roar. Your ears are popping.
"I've never experienced anything like it."
The environment around his resort had been all but destroyed by the storm, he said.
"I'm just looking at it now through the broken windows of my rental car.
"The trees are like matchsticks. The driveway is completely covered in branches. The bush we drove through to get here has been completely defoliated."
Expectations of 'disaster zone'
Ingham mayor Pino Giandomenico also expected daylight to reveal "massive amounts of carnage".
Mr Giandomenico, a veteran of several cyclones, said the ferocity of the cyclone was frightening in Ingham but it was too soon to say what damage the town had sustained.
He said that Yasi was a terrifying experience.
"I've been through about half a dozen cyclones and this is the first one that when it hit land, it just kept pumping. It didn't back off at all," he told the Nine Network.
"All night it was like standing beside a 747 with the engines roaring, and trees flashing and bashing, and things going bump in the night ...
"It was quite a terrifying night for someone who has been through half a dozen cyclones."
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