The normally bustling tourist town of Airlie Beach was a ghost town on Thursday as locals come to grips with the decimation brought by Cyclone Debbie.
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Luke Harley said his Mantra Club Croc hotel lost power on Monday night and water on Wednesday, and he was looking after about 75 guests, who could not shower for days.
"[Guests] are filling up toilet cisterns with buckets of water from the pool, we're rationing bottled water for them," Mr Harley said.
Mr Harley said the town was "apocalyptic", roads were cut off and phone reception was down, except for Telstra.
"All the trees have got all the bark stripped and the leaves off them," he said.
"There is a lot of devastation up here.
"The main road of Airlie, it's just all foliage at the moment, it's all trees down, it's such a thriving day life and night life, and to see it, I mean, you could shoot a cannon down the street and not hit anyone at the moment.
"There's a lot of damage to roads and flooding.
"Everyone's in good spirits and that's all we can ask for."
Roads have been cut off and crews are working to get access to restore power and repair damage across north Queensland.
Ergon Energy reported on Thursday night that 57,000 customers were still without power, with significant outages in Airlie Beach, Cannonvale, Proserpine, Bowen, Mackay and the northern beaches of Mackay.
Woolworths opened its doors on Thursday, the first time since Cyclone Debbie struck the region, which Mr Harley said was "pandemonium".
"There were thousands [of people] and there was a two-hour line-up at the checkout," he said.
The hotel has recently reopened after a $5.5 million refurbishment, but Mr Harley said he was lucky the property did not sustain major structural damage.
"We've lost a couple of awnings and a couple of conference doors," he said.
"There's a lot of people... that are structurally doing a lot worse than us."
Mr Harley said he was putting on breakfast, lunch and dinner for the hotel's guests, with many restaurants in town running low on supplies.
But he said the hotel's supplies were also running low.
"We've had zero supplies come through to us, we're only running off the stock that we had on hand," he said.
"But minus power, the freezers have gone down, so they're just being kept frozen at the moment by the natural temperature from when the power went down on Monday."
Mr Harley said about 70 per cent of his guests were international tourists.
"We've got some from China, we've got Scottish, Chilean, we've got some American guests, we've got some guests from Mexico, we've got guests from Sweden, Germany, so it really is a league of nations here at the moment and communication's been an issue," he said.
Mr Harley's pregnant wife Teneale is due in about two weeks, and he said they would cross "fingers and legs" for the next few days so they could get to a hospital.
