TRIPLE-0 was so stretched during Brisbane's devastating storms that a Cairns woman made four failed attempts to report a violent attack as it unfolded in front of her.

The woman, who asked not to be named, was working at an Earlville restaurant as she watched a pack of violent thugs bash a man with a hammer then escape into the night.

She said she tried four times to phone 000 but it kept ringing out.

It was only on the fifth attempt, 10 minutes into the assault, that she was able to alert police to the brutal attack on Andrew Neilsen by six teenagers aged 12 to 17.

"I looked out the window and saw them throwing pallets everywhere," she said.

"I tried to call 000 but it kept ringing out and it was only on my fifth try that I managed to get through."

The woman, who said there was always trouble between Sizzler and KFC at Earlville, said if police had been notified immediately, the gang could have been caught.

"All they said to me when I finally got through was that they were sorry," she said.

"But I'm sure that the police would have gotten there when the kids were there if the first call had gone through."

Telstra Countrywide Far Northern boss Wally Donaldson confirmed the woman had been attempting to make the 000 calls "smack bang in the middle of storm activity".

"During the storms we had a really high rate of calls and that impacted on our ability to answer incoming calls," he said.

Mr Donaldson said the region was serviced by two call centres, one in Sydney and another in Melbourne, but Sydney, which handles most of the calls, had a fault.

He said the main problem was the number of calls being made in the height of the storm but the Sydney fault would have also contributed to the delay in the 000 call being answered.

"We did have a faulty circuit at 9.15pm to 10.15pm," he said.

"It had an impact on some incoming traffic."

Police were unable to respond to questions from The Cairns Post yesterday.

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