Dear Editor,

As a local business in the Douglas Shire I wanted to update Newsport readers and our lovely customers about our shop, Mossman Print.

As we all remember Cyclone Jasper rolled into town in mid December last year and kidded us into thinking that it was just another false alarm. 

However the town of Mossman has since wondered what on earth it did to be deserve the devastation it had to endure when cyclonic rains of biblical proportions hit its main street just 24 hours later and didn’t cease for over a week. 

The stormwater wreaked unimaginable havoc on the town and in our case, drenched all our printers, stock, computers and shop fittings.

Our family was just one of the many Mossman families who suffered unprecedented destruction to their businesses as the water poured in the doors unrelentingly for the next five days compounded over the next five months with ensuing access to insurance companies and government bureaucracy seemingly impenetrable.

One shudders to think what would have happened, or perhaps it should be what would not have happened had our Federal champion Warren Entsch MP not stepped up to the plate and thundered his way through the administrative halls of the mighty insurance world and demanded action to alleviate the mental and physical suffering of the army of helpless victims of this natural disaster - the likes of which had not been seen locally for over a century…