Images:
The
scene of devistation brought by cyclone Tracy which greeted Chris
Noonan and the Commonwealth Film Unit crew in Darwin in 1974.
Twas the night before Christmas in 1974
In a town called Darwin on Australia’s northern shore
I was young and carefree but little did I know
That a storm it was a brewing, Tracy was her name,
And later that night, when I thought all would be well,
Tracy came to call and then there was hell.
But for now I was working and have lots of fun,
In a down town restaurant, I had been working all summer long.
We were having Christmas drinks it was 11 o’clock,
When John came by and said it had to stop,
The storm outside was raging and not yet at its peak,
So John drove me home, it was not a time to speak.
It was scary outside in the pitch of the night,
With gale force winds and a roar that gave fright,
So John dropped me off home to bunker down,
While he made a dash back into town.
Things started to crash all around me and then,
I realized the ceiling had fallen in,
I rushed to the bathroom, where I remember being told,
This is the strongest place to shelter and hold,
On as tight as you can and wait till the storm has withered and gone.
At 6 in the morning I looked out and oh what a sight
Rows and rows of homes had gone in the night,
There was nothing but baroness and grey silence all around,
An eeriness had settled out there below,
Until I heard a family downstairs come out and yell “hello”
The moral of this story I am here to tell
Live your life to the full, be happy and brave.
Enjoy every day,
And your Christmas’s as well!
Editor's note (from Wikipedia): Cyclone Tracy was a
tropical cyclone that devastated the city of
Darwin,
Northern Territory,
Australia, from
Christmas Eve to
Christmas Day,
1974. It is the most compact cyclone or equivalent-strength hurricane
on record in the Australian basin, with gale-force winds extending only
48 kilometres (30 mi) from the centre and was the most compact system
worldwide until 2008 when
Tropical Storm Marco of the
2008 Atlantic hurricane season broke the record, with gale-force winds extending only 19 kilometres (12 mi) from the centre.
[1][2] After forming over the
Arafura Sea, the storm moved southwards and affected the city with Category 4 winds on the
Australian cyclone intensity scale, while there is evidence to suggest that it had reached Category 3 on the
Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale when it made
landfall.
[3]
Tracy killed 71 people, caused
A$837 million in damage (1974 dollars) and destroyed more than 70 percent of Darwin's buildings, including 80 percent of houses.
[4][5]
Tracy left more than 41,000 out of the 47,000 inhabitants of the city
homeless prior to landfall and required the evacuation of over 30,000
people.
[6] Most of Darwin's population was evacuated to
Adelaide,
Whyalla,
Alice Springs and
Sydney,
and many never returned to the city. After the storm passed, the city
was rebuilt using more modern materials and updated building techniques.
Bruce Stannard of
The Age stated that Cyclone Tracy was a "disaster of the first magnitude ... without parallel in
Australia's history."
[7]
