In 1974, I was the District Officer for the Commonwealth Department of the Northern Territory (formerly the Department of the Interior) in Katherine.
I recall after the Christmas Day church service in the Anglican Church in Katherine, I was with Andy McNeill the local police officer. We were eating prawns over the bonnet of his car. We were using the Codan radio to try to reach Darwin. We managed to reach Pidgeon Hole station 450km west of Katherine on the Victoria River, but no one up near Darwin. We knew something had happened.
Cyclone Tracy had directly hit Darwin early in the morning on Christmas Day. The destruction of the city of 48,000 people was almost complete. People had died. Services were all cut. Late on Christmas night Major General Alan Stretton and the Minister for the Department of the Northern Territory Rex Patterson arrived in Darwin and the evacuations began. It is estimated that 10,000 left Darwin by car and 25,000 were airlifted out. A permit for entry to Darwin was needed for six months following the cyclone. (Ling Ted, 2011, Commonwealth Government Records about the Northern Territory, www.naa.gov.au/ files, accessed 3 July 2024)
In Katherine, in the early days after Christmas Day I recall we set up card tables with refreshments just near the High Level bridge on the town side for people evacuating by car.
I was shown some polaroid photos of Darwin. There was nothing left! Some feared that the cyclone would come back. Possessions were tied to the roof of cars. They had lost almost everything.
Mike Flynn opened up his newly bought Shell petrol station. On clipboards we took names and car regos. The people coming through had no money. I recall the local bank opened on a Sunday but many people did not have accounts or papers.
I provided ‘authority’ for these purchases by using the Commonwealth of Australia Central Registry stamp with my signature across it! I had no idea who would pay for the petrol. Eventually it was all settled.
At one time during these days, there was a car a minute coming into Katherine across the High Level Bridge!
Bob Holt was a Shell fuel distributor so he helped the police liaison to get the fuel from Stuart Park in Darwin out and down the track where it was needed to help the evacuees fill up on their way south. I suppose he got a permit to enter Darwin as they had closed off the roads.
I recall being at the Katherine airport when the TAA plane going north to Darwin landed. Jock Nelson the NT Administrator was onboard. Richard Morris the TAA manager took all the other passengers off. I recall that Dr Jim Scattini and two nurses went onboard with medical kits to help at Darwin Hospital. This flight was probably one of the first flights into Darwin after the cyclone.
A works camp canteen was set up at the Katherine Area School to provide food and drinks.
Welfare vouchers were given out for people to buy what they needed from Katherine Stores, Coxes. I think this was by Anne and Mike Reed and others. He was a Ranger at the Low Level Reserve then. They were our neighbours in Katherine at the time.
Helen Murphy working with the Red Cross took names of people coming through and sent these details by Telex machine down south.
My wife Nancy and the kids, Karen, Helen and Anthony went out to help at the Tindal RAAF base kitchens. These had been reopened to help feed the many people coming through. It had been closed for some time before this.
Food was dropped off on the tarmac as the RAAF planes landed at Tindal and then went on to Darwin to airlift people out. Some of the food, such as tins of biscuits we took to the McDouall Stuart Hall to distribute.
I recall I had a mattress on the floor at the District Office in Giles Street Katherine. I didn’t really sleep for a week.
In the years after, I continued to help administer government services in Katherine and met the Governor General Sir John Kerr and Kep Enderby QC, Minister in the Whitlam government.
These are my reflections of cyclone Tracy from Katherine, fifty years on. John Favelle, 83 years, Noosa, July 2024