Monday Milestone: Tracy

Santa never made it into Darwin
Disaster struck at dawn on Christmas Day
Santa never made it into Darwin
A big wind came and blew the town away
– Bill Cate, ‘Santa never made it into Darwin’
 

This Week in History:
1974, December 24
Cyclone Tracy devastates the Top End killing 71 people as Darwin is flattened on Christmas morning. 

In Darwin each Christmas there is joy, but also remembrance. Solemnity amidst the merriment of the festive season. Recalling the night when terror blew into the Northern Territory.  

Christmas was in full swing in the northern Australian hothouse for another year when the winds began to pick up. School was out for summer, and the streets were overflowing with last minute shoppers. In essence, it was like any other Christmas.

Four days earlier, reports of a new tropical cyclone developing off the coast in the Arafura Sea, hadn’t concerned locals. Earlier in December, Mother Nature had cried wolf, setting Darwin on edge about a threatening tropical cyclone that instead dissipated into nothingness. So understandably the latest storm to approach Darwin barely raised an eyebrow. Besides, it was still some 700km away. They were calling it Tracy.

Even by the morning of Christmas Eve, things were calm. Kids were excited. Trees were awash with tinsel and lights. Merriment was everywhere. But out to sea, Tracy was rounding Bathurst Island, and heading back towards Darwin. Even in the afternoon as the sky grew overcast, and the rain began pounding, this still just felt like any typical tropical storm in the Top End.

But then Cyclone Tracy really gave Darwin the finger.

Tracy moved closer and closer towards the city, and the winds grew stronger. The night darkened, as the realisation began to wash over Darwin. The cyclone was not bypassing the town. Merry Christmas indeed.

The night was unruly. Tracy crossed around Fannie Bay. Instruments measuring wind speeds were destroyed, but estimates place them around 240kph. Through the early hours the town was turned upside down, inside out and back to front. Darwin residents crouched and huddled, holding onto something in sheer terror, as Tracy passed through the town. This was not how Christmas was supposed to be.

The following morning, Christmas morning, Darwin children ought to have been unwrapping presents. In living rooms across the Top End, there should have been pine trees and tinsel, families celebrating Christmas and enjoying their time together. But instead they were picking up the pieces both figuratively, and literally.

News broke across Australia in devastating fashion. The destruction was immense. The damage, almost total. People were missing. People were dead. Some eighty per cent of houses were destroyed. Boats were overturned on the rocks out to sea. It was Australian horror on an unprecedented scale.

Sixty five people did not survive that night. Six more were never found.

Wander the new streets of Darwin today, and the Australian spirit that rebuilt the city from this tragedy remains inspiring. They’re a resilient bunch. Which is why here at the Milestone, we remember the Top End this Christmas and that night all those years ago; the heartbreak and the horror of Cyclone Tracy. The joy blended with commemoration during the festive season.

So here at the Milestone, along with the broader Making the Nut stable, would like to wish you and yours all the best this Christmas season and thank you for your support this year.

We hope Santa finds your place tonight.

 

The Milestone Five: Most prominent Australian disasters

5. Cyclone Tracy (1974) kills 65 (later upgraded to 71) in unprecedented scenes when Darwin is flattened, only a generation after it was rebuilt following the Second World War.

4. Ash Wednesday fires (1983) burn out over two thousand square kilometres in Victoria and another two thousand in South Australia, killing 75 people.

3. The Granville Train disaster (1977) leaves 83 people dead when a crowded commuter train derails in Sydney’s west.

2. Black Saturday Bushfires (2009) comprise up to four hundred individual fires causing the loss of 173 lives.

1. Heatwaves in Victoria (1938-39) kill 438 people, and spark the Black Friday bushfires killing a further 71 people, and burning out almost five million acres.