An army of chainsaw-wielding volunteers has already begun the clean-up in Yeppoon following the destruction caused by Cyclone Marcia.

The coastal central Queensland town was grazed by the side of the category five storm as it made its way south and inland.

Large trees were strewn across roads and roofs were torn off a smattering of houses.

• Cyclone Lam downgraded, clean up to begin

But the community quickly rallied to clean up the mess, with neighbours uniting to lop obstacles with their chainsaws and tow logs away in their utes.

Power is expected to be cut for several days and emergency services are calling on residents to use water only when absolutely necessary, given treatment plants won’t be operational until electricity is restored.

While the clean-up was underway in earnest by late Friday afternoon, many residents were relieved to see the damage wasn’t as severe as they had thought while bunkered down.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services station officer Charlie Fenton said after working throughout the night, he was thankful to find his home suffered relatively minor damage.

The house next door, meanwhile, had its roof ripped open and peeled onto the next home down.

“I was happy about the house but there’s a lot of collateral damage around the place,” he told AAP.

“When you compare it to a lot of the other properties around town, I actually feel quite blessed.”

A few streets away, Kevin Lalor thought his roof had been ripped off after he saw bits of tin flying down the road.

It wasn’t until the storm died down, he figured out it was from a house two streets away.

But Mr Fenton said he wasn’t surprised, given he’d recorded the wind gusts down his street hitting 332.6km/h.

“We saw the roof coming up the road, we just sat there thinking ‘what the?'” he said.

“We were waiting for this big sucker (tree) here to fall down, then I watched my neighbour’s shed fall apart.”