Despite 12 hours' warning of the cyclone's impending arrival, it fell largely on deaf ears. Residents were complacent after a near-miss from Cyclone Selma a few weeks before and distracted by the festive season. Indeed in the preceding decade the Bureau of Meteorology had identified 25 cyclones in Northern Territory waters but few had caused much damage. As Kevin Murphy describes in his history of NT tropical cyclones Big Blow Up North: "The residents of [Darwin] could almost have been forgiven for thinking by now that they were invincible.
The radius of the galeforce winds extended only 50 kilometres from the eye of the cyclone, making it one of the smallest tropical cyclones on record according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA. Records show that prior to Tracy, at least six tropical cyclones had severely impacted Darwin.
The worst of these was in January when a "disastrous hurricane" nearly destroyed the settlement and 28 people died. However unlike Tracy, it is thought this cyclone did not directly pass over Darwin. And while Tracy was reported as a category four cyclone, some meteorologists today believe it may have been a category five shortly before it made landfall.
At midnight on Christmas Day wind gusts greater than kilometres per hour began to be recorded. The centre of the cyclone reached East Point at am and made landfall just north of Fannie Bay at am.
Tracy was so strong it bent a railway signal tower in half. The city was devastated by the cyclone. At least 90 per cent of homes in Darwin were demolished or badly damaged. Forty-five vessels in the harbour were wrecked or damaged.
In addition to the 65 people who died, were admitted to hospital with serious injuries. Vegetation was damaged up to 80 kilometres away from the coast and Darwin felt eerily quiet due to the lack of insect and bird life.
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The destruction in Darwin after 's Cyclone Tracy. Related Video. Read Next. On this day: Pemulwuy is killed Remembering the Indigenous resistance fighter determined to maintain Aboriginal traditions by resisting British rule.
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Operating continued throughout the night and into the early morning. Local teams worked without relief until the arrival of a surgical team from Canberra late that day. Those who were considered unable to return to work within two weeks were evacuated by air to safer locations. All official communications out of Darwin were no longer operational. Station manager Bob Hooper, who was an amateur radio operator, helped to establish communications using his own equipment.
By 10 a. Gary Gibson, another amateur operator, was able to establish a station at the Darwin Community College, and within a short period of time, a network of stations was established across the country.
By a. For the next two days, it was Darwin's only link to the outside world and was on the air for all but 34 hours in the coming weeks. Those who remained in Darwin faced the threat of several diseases due to much of the city being without water, electricity or basic sanitation. An initial response was to vaccinate residents for typhoid and cholera.
Approximately 30, people were homeless and were forced to seek shelter in several makeshift housing and emergency centres that lacked proper hygienic conditions. Volunteers came in from across the country to assist with the emergency relief efforts. Trench latrines were dug; water supplies delivered by tankers, and mass immunisation programs begun.
The army was given the task of searching houses for people and animals, as well as locating other health risks; for example, cleaning out rotting contents from fridges and freezers across the city.
This was completed within a week. The city itself was sprayed with malathion to control mosquitoes and other similar pests. Attempts to reconnect the essential services to the city began on Christmas Day.
Local officers from the Commonwealth Department of Housing and Construction began clearing debris and working to restore power. They sealed off damaged water hydrants and activated pumps to reactivate the city's water and sewerage systems.
In February , Whitlam announced the creation of the Darwin Reconstruction Commission, which was given the task of rebuilding the city "within five years", focusing primarily on building houses. The Commission was headed by Tony Powell. The damage to the city was so severe that some advocated moving the entire city. However, the government insisted that it be rebuilt in the same location.
By May , Darwin's population had recovered somewhat, with 30, residing in the city. Temporary housing, caravans, hotels and an ocean liner , MV Patris , were used to house people, as reconstruction of permanent housing had not yet begun by September that year.
Ella Stack became Mayor of Darwin in May and was heavily involved in its reconstruction. However, by the following April, and after receiving criticism for the slow speed of reconstruction, the Commission had built 3, new homes in the nearly destroyed northern suburbs, and completed repairs to those that had survived the storm.
Several new building codes were drawn up, trying to achieve the competing goals of the speedy recovery of the area and ensuring that there would be no repeat of the damage that Darwin took in By , much of the city had recovered and was able to house almost the same number of people as it had before the cyclone hit. However, by the s, as many as sixty percent of Darwin's population had left, never to return. In the years that followed, Darwin was almost entirely rebuilt and now shows almost no resemblance to the pre-Tracy Darwin of December Although a Legislative Assembly had been set up earlier in the year, the Northern Territory had only minimal self-government, with a federal minister being responsible for the Territory from Canberra.
However, the cyclone and subsequent responses highlighted several problems with the way the regional government was set up. Many of the government records associated with Cyclone Tracy became publicly available on 1 January under the year rule. Cyclone Tracy inspired the song "Santa Never Made It into Darwin", composed by Bill Cate and performed by Bill and Boyd in to raise money for the relief and reconstruction efforts.
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