Floating Off The Stairs: Antony Bullock

My name is Antony Bullock, and this is my story.

Christmas Eve 1974 marked a particularly special occasion for me for several reasons. It was my last year in primary school, and I was going to start high school in January. I was just two weeks away from turning thirteen—a teenager! To add to this, I had a very sneaky suspicion that I was going to get a 10-speed racing bike for Christmas, something I would use daily to ride to my new high school. I was a typical boy, full of energy, adventurous, and always curious.

The day was generally uneventful other than Mum being busy getting things ready for Christmas Day and giving me random jobs to keep me busy. Most Darwinians knew of a cyclone lurking off the Timor Sea; in fact, just a few weeks prior, we had Cyclone Selma, which turned out to be a fizzer. We did, however, get used to the routine radio warning sounds of the ubiquitous siren before each update. The other notable event around the same time was a large earthquake that shook Darwin while I was in Grade 7 at Milner Primary School, which caused the evacuation of the entire school—an exciting event for a 12-year-old.

To kill time leading up to the “last sleep before Christmas,” at about 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve, I grabbed my second-hand 1971 Malvern Star Chopper dragster with the three-speed shifter on the crossbar and headed out the driveway onto Lyons Street, Wanguri. Directly ahead from our house was the under-construction Wanguri Primary School, which had reached a stage of completion ready for all the internal fit-out and landscaping. Often during the dry season, I would head over there to watch the progress and occasionally did a walk-through, exploring the empty building with a few mates after the builders had finished for the day.

I caught up with a few other kids in the area, some on their bikes, others on foot, and we all excitedly discussed what we might get for Christmas. The looming cyclone did not get a mention. One of those kids was Robin Creasy, who lived in the neighbourhood and whom I went to school with at Milner Primary; we were good mates. I remember that afternoon vividly: the sky was totally overcast, not a breath of wind, and light rain fell straight down vertically. I do remember the humidity was intense—so much so that if you exerted yourself, you’d still sweat despite the light rain. We didn’t care as we did this routinely; playing in the rain was just the norm. We almost never spent time indoors; rather, we spent countless hours making our own fun and creating endless adventures outdoors.

As always, these times with mates were cut short by reality, with Mum calling me from the balcony to come in for a shower and supper. Saying goodbye to my friends, I raced in, leaning my “Chopper” up against the wall beside the laundry, and ran upstairs. In those days, it was extremely rare to hear of a bike being stolen, and almost no one locked up their homes. Bing Crosby Christmas carols were being played on Dad’s record player, and the traditional Christmas tree sparkled in the corner of the lounge next to the television. It was routine tradition.

On this Christmas, we were looking after two dogs of a close friend of the family, Warrick Otley (who was on holidays), and they were tied up downstairs near the laundry. The house was a typical elevated house all too commonly found in Darwin with the living area upstairs: three bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen with a large verandah, and downstairs was parking for two cars, an open laundry area with sink, power point, and two taps for the washing machine, and a single toilet enclosed with a tiny window above the toilet cistern. The toilet would have been 90 cm wide by about 180 cm long, and the house floorboards were the ceiling of the toilet.

As darkness fell and supper finished, the evening progressed with routine cyclone warnings, which became more ominous. I remember so clearly those siren sounds and the following male voice in a very official tone giving the warning number and specific updates. Each time they sounded, both my parents became more attentive and more concerned; however, each time they summarily dismissed the chance of the cyclone hitting Darwin. I should point out that cyclones were no strangers to my parents.

In 1962, we had a farm on the border of Rhodesia on the foothills of the Chimanimani Mountains, which was a mountain range that separated Rhodesia from Mozambique. This area was incredibly remote, and you were often on your own when in trouble. Mother Nature delivered a powerful cyclone which struck Mozambique on the night of the 3rd of January and caused widespread damage on our farm, including the family car, which was fuelled up and ready to race Mum, who was heavily pregnant with me, to the nearest doctor some 45 km down the range to the small township of Chipinga.

Unbeknownst to Dad, the intense rain from the cyclone had somehow breached the petrol tank of the car and contaminated the fuel with water. When Mum’s water eventually broke about 1 a.m. on the 4th of January, Dad loaded Mum into the car, which proceeded to cough and splutter to the end of the long driveway to the road and then conked out. Dad had to push the car onto the road, face it downhill, and from there it was a 45 km engine-off downhill run with the engine mostly off on a perilous muddy road with multiple hairpin turns to Chipinga, where I was born about five hours later. The story goes that Dad got pretty intoxicated after that drive—no doubt to calm his nerves from the anxiety of the journey—and missed my birth by a good couple of hours.

By about 9 p.m., the drum of heavy rain had steadily intensified, and the wind had increased, although it was still nothing to be overly concerned with; my mind was firmly on Christmas Day. Exhausted, I decided to head to bed. My sister, Jane, was fast asleep in her bedroom while both my parents sat up in bed listening to cyclone updates on a portable radio. I drifted off to sleep only to be woken sometime later by the house inexplicably shaking, similar to that of an earthquake, which included the loud gusts of wind coming from outside my open bedroom window. This was sometime just after 11 p.m., my mum told me later.

Confused, I got up out of bed and walked into my parents’ bedroom where they were both sitting up in bed listening intently to the radio. At this point, I knew something was wrong. What I didn’t know, however, was that Tracy was somewhere between Melville Island and Darwin and heading on a direct collision course with Darwin. At about the same time I walked into their bedroom, my bedroom door slammed shut, making a colossal bang that shook the house, immediately followed by the sound of heavy objects crashing into walls within my bedroom. Instantly, Dad and I ran to the door to try and open it; there was not a chance in hell we could budge it, let alone open it. We could, however, hear my bedroom disintegrating behind the door as the open bedroom window created a huge vacuum, eventually succumbing to intense pressure internally and effectively exploding. I would not be here telling my story had I not left my bedroom when I did.

By this stage, it was obvious the weather was intensifying and that things had become terribly serious very quickly; the house was starting to rock uncomfortably, making walking awkward. In an instant, Dad decided to grab the yellow Dolphin torch which was beside his bed and head to the kitchen to look outside. I followed him. Peering outside through the kitchen window over the sink, the yellow light beam of the torch revealed the rain travelling almost horizontally. In our back garden, we had one large gum tree about five metres from the house, and as if on cue, the large tree leaned under the tremendous force of the wind and fell in the direction of our neighbour’s house, presumably causing damage. It was evident it was far too treacherous to venture outside and deal with the tree; furthermore, it was massive and would require a crane to remove it.

We went back to my parents’ bedroom. The wind was howling, and my sister Jane was awake and with Mum, looking very frightened. It was at that moment when we were all together that the power went out. Undoubtedly, roof iron or building debris had taken out the power lines somewhere. Darkness immediately encapsulated us with the occasional flash of lightning illuminating the room momentarily. Now, for a moment, close your eyes and visualize you are in an elevated house, in complete darkness which is rocking and hearing screaming winds followed by the sounds of objects smashing into walls within the house. It was at this moment my dad made the instant decision to get out of the house; there were no negotiations, no debate, no time to procrastinate.

The plan was to get down the stairs and shelter in the besser block toilet under the house. That was the most secure place left. The problem was that the key to the toilet was in the glass cabinet above the counter in the kitchen just past the entrance, which was at the other end of the house. To get there required me to run down the hallway in complete darkness to jump up on the counter to retrieve the key—an easy task under normal circumstances. The difficulty was this time there were no lights, the house was rocking and shaking, the noise of the wind and debris was frightening, and I was alone. Acting on impulse and without thinking, I quickly made my way down the hallway and up onto the counter, slid the glass screen to my right, and fumbled for the key.

At this moment when I turned to jump off the counter, the other end of the kitchen literally exploded away in a nanosecond, revealing the emptiness of space mixed with the flash of lightning illuminating the glint of heavy rain mixing in amongst swirling building debris. I was beginning to have sensory overload as I couldn’t comprehend just what was taking place in such a short space of time. My brain was in hyperdrive, and with sheer fear and self-preservation, I was in and out of the kitchen in seconds.

Following the torchlight back to Dad, Mum, and Jane, we quickly gathered in the front entrance of the house, down a short corridor to the kitchen, adjacent to the stairs. The wind in the house was incredible and appeared to come from all directions. Things were unquestionably dire, and it was pitch black. I distinctly remember Dad shining the torch around to assess the situation; it was like looking into the gates of hell—flashes of unidentifiable items flew past the torch beam at great speeds. Dad shone the Dolphin 180 degrees up towards the white ceiling of the verandah only to see it peel away and evaporate into the darkness, like tissue paper out of a car window going at high speed.

Immediately, Dad called on Mum to hold Jane and get downstairs to the toilet as fast as they bloody could. As they disappeared down the stairs into the inky darkness, Dad took a firm grip on my right hand, said, “Ready, son?” and we took maybe two steps… before I knew what was going on, we “floated” off the stairs as if by magic and then dumped on the front lawn about five metres from the stairs near the front fence. Without hesitation, we were up and making our way to the toilet with Dad’s vice-like grip still on my hand. I remember running past Dad’s new car, which the torchlight revealed was now sporting a sizable dent in the rear; I couldn’t help thinking at the time how that was going to affect Christmas Day.

Again, the torchlight revealed Mum and Jane had made it downstairs safely, and Mum had the leads of the two dogs, terrified and both with their tails firmly between their legs. We arrived seconds after, and the toilet door quickly opened, and we all bundled in. To my surprise, there was my brand-new electric blue shiny 10-speed Malvern Star racing bike. Not a word was said as we piled into the tiny cubicle made far more cramped by the two dogs and my bike. Mum sat on the toilet; I sat on the floor to her left with the bike and two dogs opposite me, and Dad and Jane sat on the floor against the wall opposite Mum.

I would guess that all these events took place before midnight as the house started disintegrating between 11:15–11:45 p.m. We were all in different stages of shock with the reality of what was taking place.

The sound of intense screaming wind in conjunction with the demolishing sounds of the house exploding above us is something I have never been able to adequately describe to this day—not even close. This sound went on for hours, and eventually, as our entire house was systematically destroyed, we became more exposed to the reality of the enormous devastation of the cyclone. The occasional light beam from the torch showed the immense damage inflicted above us; most of the floorboards above us were gone, and huge beams of timber, electrical wiring, and roof sheeting slapping the beams with great intensity were clearly visible in the torch beam. The noise was simply deafening, and we were drenched in rain which was very cold and saw our hands and feet “prune”; we shivered uncontrollably. Sheet lightning was constant and appeared to never slow down; this created a nanosecond snapshot of what was happening above.

While never being a God-fearing religious family by any measure, we were, however, raised as “Christians” and adopted their principal core values. I knew deep inside we as a family were in great trouble when Mum started praying, starting with the Lord’s Prayer. I immediately joined in… the reality was, that was all we had left. We were effectively stuck in a compromised brickwork coffin with tonnes of debris just above our heads ready to cave in at any moment while praying and hoping we would survive. We were at the very mercy of whatever nature was delivering. The intense lightning continued to give us glimpses of the horrors unfolding above us; this only increased anxiety.

The sounds of the wind intensified at different times of the night; sometimes it was as if we were in the middle of a tornado in Kansas, Wizard of Oz style, with our hair going vertical for several seconds; then the wind swirled in another direction. But it never stopped, and we never experienced the eye of the cyclone in Wanguri at all as others did in different areas around Darwin—not that I knew what that was at the time. The destruction continued unabated for hours, and the sound of building debris and especially tin hitting the building and the concrete pillars that held the house up was ear-splitting and caused you to involuntarily flinch; at any moment we expected to be either crushed or simply blown away. To add to this, we had been wet from soaking rain for hours, and mild hypothermia started taking its grip. My mother had a solution and announced in her loudest voice for all of us to wee in our pants as this gave immense pleasure of warmth, albeit for a few seconds.

We sat motionless for hours, cramped by our enclosure, drenching wet, flinching to the sounds of the chaos and destruction happening just above us and all around us. There was no escape; this is where it was all going to end. Seconds turned into minutes and minutes into hours; it was relentless. I had never really thought about death until this moment.

At about 5 a.m., we started to hear the faint sound of a car horn in the direction behind our house. This was the first sound heard in hours that came from human intervention. “There are others alive,” I thought. The winds were still raging, and you could still hear debris crashing. The car horn persisted for a good 30 minutes on and off, but no one, it seems, was able to intervene as it was far too dangerous to investigate. The car horn eventually stopped. We found out later that day the young family behind us had been crushed by a falling wall and tragically their baby was killed. That news was gut-wrenching and hit us all hard. There was unfortunately another tragic death in Wanguri, and the circumstances were very similar to that of Dad and me with the young man being blown off his elevated home.

By about 6 a.m., the first hint of dawn was casting its grey blanket of light on Darwin. The winds had subsided to a moderate level, and the rain eased somewhat, and for the first time, I thought we were going to make it through this cyclone. Optimism rose, and we began talking to each other for the first time in a long while. Sometime during the night, the dogs, undoubtedly through fear, had defecated on the floor, and it was mixed up with the water on the floor and all our urine, and it stank. Dad stood up drenched from the rain and shaking with cold. He attempted to open the toilet door to have a look outside; it was jammed shut. Dad always carried a Swiss Army pocketknife; it never left him. He used the knife for several minutes to attempt to open the door without success. Glancing around the toilet, he looked above, which was a mess of timber beams entwined with household debris and sheet iron; there was no escaping that way.

Eventually, he focused on a spot where the small window above the toilet had once been, now somehow sucked out of its frame leaving a hole in the wall, and quickly hoisted me up the wall to scramble out and open the door from the other side.

Still unsure of the situation, I was unceremoniously hoisted above the toilet onto the cistern and stuck my head through the cavity in the wall only to see what can only be described as an apocalypse of biblical proportions. Nothing—and I mean nothing—could prepare you for this. The sight before my eyes was impossible to fathom; my brain could not process what I was seeing. The coming of dawn in the shadowy grey light exposed the widespread and comprehensive destruction for as far as I could see in every direction; there was not a house standing. I couldn’t recognize anything; I remember saying to Dad, “Everything has gone.” In a moment’s notice, time stood still; I had totally forgotten why I was being pushed through a wall cavity.

Twelve hours earlier, we had a completely normal suburb with trees, gardens, Christmas paraphernalia. Reality rushed back as Dad nudged me through the cavity, and fortunately for me, a large timber beam was hard up against the wall, and I managed to somehow get myself to the ground safely. There was no back garden, no trees, no fences, no recognizable landmarks, no streets—just debris for as far as the eye could see. I did see a car on its roof at the end of where our garden fence should have been. Unable to process what I was witnessing, I focused back on my task of opening the toilet door.

The ground was saturated; I was in bare feet with mud up to my ankles and dressed in my pyjamas, stinking of urine and dog faeces. I carefully made my way around to what was just six hours ago a standing house, now just a pile of building debris, and most of the floorboards of the elevated house were missing. Glancing around, trying to absorb what I was witnessing, it was hard to stay focused. The collapsed debris from the house had appeared to save our family from certain death, with large timber beams crisscrossing the toilet walls with building debris over the top effectively keeping us in a cocoon shielding us from flying materials. Looking down, I saw a piece of unrecognizable section of building material which was jammed, preventing the door from opening, and despite my diminutive size, I was able to move it, allowing the toilet door to open outwards about halfway before it hit a much larger beam suspended from the debris above.

Slowly but surely, all the family emerged from the shell of the toilet, including the two dogs. For reasons unknown, I cannot recall a single memory despite trying on so many occasions—a period of about two to three minutes from the time the family were out in the open taking in the damage to somehow making it across the mountains of debris between the toilet and to where our front gate used to be. My memory returns to the point the family is standing where the driveway of our house was, which faced directly across the park towards the Wanguri Primary School, which was under construction. It was still raining and windy. Shock, horror, and sheer disbelief filled the faces of our family. Debris was everywhere, and almost nothing could be readily recognized; the destruction was total in every direction. As if by instinct and without a word spoken, we shuffled in the steady rain towards the school, carefully navigating through the mountains of scattered wreckage that covered the road. Few trees remained standing, and those that did were completely stripped of any foliage. It was painfully noticeable that most of the power poles had been bent over, some missing, with remaining ones having sheet metal wrapped around them. I wondered if the power lines on the ground were still alive; I made sure I didn’t touch one of them.

We all surveyed the devastation in silence, still unable to fathom the immense destruction that we were all internally processing. Christmas presents seemed to be randomly scattered everywhere, as were personal items; it was surreal. I remember seeing a wallet and a glass jar on the footpath, the glass jar intact and full of round 50-cent coins; sheer instinct compelled me to pick them up. The wallet contained $600 in cash and, fortunately, a driver’s licence which was our neighbour’s (and yes, it was returned that same day; the jar of 50-cent round coins had no identification, and I kept them for years after and lost them in a move somewhere). Looking down Lyons Street and across to Gsell Street, there was enough light now to see the greyish outlines of other people emerging from the rubble that was once their homes. Like zombies rising slowly from an apocalyptic event and emerging from the rubble, more and more people walked out, some being carried or assisted out, and others became the walking injured. The unfinished school became the magnet for all these survivors. No one seemed to talk; most were shivering with cold and appeared to be in shock and psychologically broken.

We entered the school through a double doorway on the north side of the building and into what appeared to be a large room (which is now the library of the school), with cold wet concrete floors, grey brick walls, and no internal structures. In the middle of the room were several dozen rolls of insulation. Dad walked us over to a wall on the north side where others had sat or lay down; the room was filling fast with people; some appeared quite badly injured. Again, there was little talking, and those who could help started to give immediate assistance to those injured. My mother attended to a woman in her mid-20s who sat beside us; she had a large gash to her leg, possibly broken, and lacerations to her head. It freaked me out a bit, but I couldn’t stop looking.

I sat with my sister Jane in silence, absorbing the events that were unfolding. I would have guessed there were between 50 and 70 people in the room; many were in their pyjamas, some just in shorts, and almost no footwear to be seen. The sounds of young children sobbing were the loudest in the room. Eventually, people began talking.

It must have been mid-morning when two men stood up and made some loud announcements from the middle of the room. It was the first sign of a group coming together. A middle-aged man, dressed in what looked like pyjamas, announced with authority that we could be stuck here for days and that groups must be immediately organized to undertake important tasks. These were:

1. Collect as many containers as possible to catch water.
2. Find clean steel rubbish bins or similar (these would be used for cooking and boiling water). Several were found almost immediately in another room of the school.
3. Find as many unopened cans of food outside in the ruins of houses and particularly look for baby foods.
4. Collect wood and some fuel siphoned from cars (this was used to start fires to cook with).
5. Find as much medical supplies as possible to treat the wounded.
6. Report if you find anyone that needs assistance.

The second man then addressed the group; he was somewhat younger and possibly was an off-duty police officer or military by the way he spoke with authority. His message was ominous, and I remember it vividly.

He stated that there was information from a recent arrival to the school—a young man that had somehow wandered in from Alawa and walked into Wanguri School and stated he had seen some people alive in Alawa. Up to this point in time, we genuinely believed we were the only people left alive. With that information, a posse of men immediately gathered together to go out and search for these “survivors.” Dad, a former soldier, immediately volunteered to help along with five or six other men, and within ten minutes they had a plan and set off west for Trower Road, then navigate down into Alawa.

The remainder of the group that were fit enough to help broke off into different groups to get the tasks done as stipulated by the first man. I was almost 13 and considered myself to be a man and of immense use to the group by collecting as much tinned food as I could. I did find, as I recall, two mismatching shoes to walk about as I was barefoot, and the chance of cutting your feet on tin sheeting, broken glass, and exposed nails was very high. Proud as punch to be considered a “man” among the group, I eagerly went about my task finding all sorts of tinned food which I brought back. I did bring back a cooked ham I found in the mud for the two dogs we had in our care. I do remember being distracted by the number of Christmas presents scattered around and wondered what their contents were—always tempted but never doing it because I knew they belonged to someone else.

By lunchtime, things were getting well organized; a fire was started in the middle of the school room floor, and two steel rubbish bins were over the fire on stacked bricks half full of whatever tinned food could be found. Unbroken crockery that was found outside was used to feed people. In all honesty, the “gruel” served up was tasty, and I would have gone back for seconds had Mum not stopped me, reminding me of “my manners.” Enough clean water was found to keep everyone satisfied and to clean wounds. A makeshift washing line was used to dry whatever linen or clothes that could be salvaged; these would be used for bedding, dressing wounds, and replace clothing that was starting to stink. Water was additionally boiled in the rubbish bins for drinking.

By mid-afternoon, the posse of men who left earlier returned with several other people, a couple with injuries. I, like Mum, was relieved to see Dad in one piece and in good spirits. Sometime after, our family decided to walk back to the house some 200–250 metres away to see what we could salvage. This visit only caused Mum to break down in tears; there was absolutely nothing left of the house—a lifetime of memories gone. We did manage to find small items here and there and stacked them up where the laundry was. Dad’s new car, a white Renault 16TS, was totalled, crushed by building debris. He stood and gazed at his car for several seconds; I had no idea what was going through his mind. As we left the house, our neighbour on the right side where our tree fell across his house approached us along with his wife; I guessed them to be in their early 30s. That prompted Mum to return his wallet with the $600. That was the only good news he received that day and immediately offered $10 reward to me; again, Mum insisted he keep his money—his house was in the same condition as ours, completely gone, and he needed every cent. He was confused about where his car was, which was parked under their house. It was a gold HQ Holden Kingswood; I used to ogle over it and always loved the sound of the V8. His car was missing—not as in stolen but as in the cyclone picked it up during the storm and dumped it somewhere else. He never found that car again.

The Wanguri school became our new home for the next several days, and insulation for the building became our beds along with whatever material that could be found and dried out. The fire in the middle of the room was always managed in rotations and became our only source of light during the night. Rumours started circulating that evening that the cyclone had done a 180-degree turn and could be heading back. I was too exhausted to care and fell asleep beside my sister.

The next few days were a complete blur of mixed memories. The second day we met up with many more people, including the police who checked in on our group. That was a huge relief to me and my parents. I remember the second or third day after the cyclone, a Hercules plane flew over us so low I could have hit it throwing a cricket ball—or so it seemed. Plumes of mist billowed out the back of the plane’s wings, which I later was told was disinfectant spray to combat the tonnes of rotting food to prevent an outbreak of disease. The Federal Police arrived a day or so after the cyclone, which meant the rest of Australia knew what had happened. They were all armed. All through the days I stayed at the school, you could hear random gunshots coming from the direction of Casuarina Shopping Centre. Some said it was police shooting stray dogs; months later, I was told by a good source that looters were being shot at. Bulldozers, front-end loaders, and dump trucks started appearing, pushing debris off the streets so that people could travel and allow the police to start evacuating people from Darwin. I do recall Dad finding some clothes for me to change into as my pyjamas were starting to stink.

On day three, our food supplies dwindled, and a group of us made our way to Moil shops in a salvaged Holden ute. We had got word that there was food and necessities available. Mum and I sat in the back with two or three other people. We all sat in silence as we were confronted by the total devastation of the suburbs, street after street. Eventually arriving at Moil shops, we were greeted by an affable middle-aged Greek man, presumably the shop owner, who was holding a shotgun. He had troubles with looters apparently, so he allowed each family one trolley load of whatever we could put in the trolley free of charge. This was the generosity often observed just after Tracy and restored so much faith in humanity. The community got together.

About the fourth day after the cyclone, I recall a medical team dropped by to give us whatever shots were required; from memory, it was tetanus and something else. Some of the injured had their wounds addressed, and some were sent to Darwin Hospital in the city.

A day or so after, we received word that we were going to be evacuated out of Darwin sometime on the 29th of December and had no clue where we were going. Arriving at the airport with absolutely nothing except the clothes on our backs—except for my sister Jane holding a dolly of some sort, and Mum with a little bit of paperwork—we said our goodbyes to Dad as all men were required to stay. That was another very emotional time for Mum. We joined a long line of survivors at the very busy airport, which was then located at the old entrance on the Stuart Highway, commonly referred to as the Shell airport gates. You could see the immense psychological trauma on the faces wherever you looked. Some women had several young children in their care, and the stress of leaving to an unknown destination, not knowing if or when you would return, must have been beyond imagination. Eventually, after a brief interview, we were advised we were heading for Perth, WA. A longish walk out along the blistering tarmac eventually saw us walking with a long line of other survivors up the stairs of a TAA Boeing 727 plane. This wasn’t the image of happy travellers leaving to an exotic destination; rather, the realization of uncertainty, ongoing anxiety, and stress. Other planes, both civilian and military, were present on the tarmac. It was a busy place with police, both Territory and Federal, the ADF, doctors, medical staff, Federal government “officials,” airport staff, and volunteers all doing their individual assigned tasks. Despite the destruction, things appeared to be organized.

The departure was uneventful except for the first few minutes of the flight where we got to see the widespread damage and destruction Tracy had wielded through the small windows of the plane. It was quite overwhelming. We made one stop at Wyndham, WA, where we were greeted by nurses and a doctor and given more injections at the base of the plane on the tarmac. We eventually arrived in Perth just before dark. I vividly recall seeing thousands of people who had gathered at the airport just to watch us walk off the plane; some had banners and others with signs of support. It was a very weird experience; we were like rock stars but in a very different way. Rather than being taken into the terminal, we were all guided by the police to a very large hangar off to the side of the terminal, which was brightly lit and had a lot of people in there. We were then taken along a long row of tables full of essential items, clothing, cooking utensils, medical supplies, etc. This was run by the Salvation Army with the generous donations from thousands of Australians around Australia. There were other “officials” doing multiple tasks, including, as I recall, money being handed to start with basic purchases once we were on our own. With a suitcase and a couple of cardboard boxes full of essentials, we were introduced and adopted by a family from the wheat belt of WA in a small town called Kellerberrin about 200 km east of Perth. And just like that, we were off in a Land Rover to start a new life.

The next year was another entire story…

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 1974 were without doubt the longest and most intense and psychological 24 hours of my life, and to this day I will never know or understand how so many people survived. Without question, tens of thousands of miracles took place that fateful night. The death toll could have easily been in the thousands. Aside from the physical destruction of Tracy, there was the psychological—and for some, physical—trauma that some 40,000 Territorians had to come to terms with. For many, the trauma was so great they never returned to Darwin; others lived with the pain buried deep in their subconsciousness, and many more are still coming to terms with the event, especially when we go into cyclone watch and alert. For us Cyclone Tracy survivors, we all share and understand the knowledge of what we went through; we don’t need to explain anything because it’s understood from firsthand experience. You will not find many, if any, Tracy survivors getting excited about a pending cyclone. For me, I just hope we never see another event like Tracy.

In closing, I would like to pay my deepest respect and condolences to those that perished that night and the following days and to those who are still missing (we will never know the real toll). A huge thanks to all those that gave their time volunteering, both in Darwin and around Australia, to help the victims of Cyclone Tracy. To the many police officers, doctors, nurses, firemen, ADF personnel, and anyone else I missed who sacrificed so much on the night and kept Darwinians safe until help arrived and beyond; to all those Australians that generously gave what they could; and last but not least, my mother and father, Rita and Alan, who kept my sister and myself safe under immense danger, pressure, and stress—thank you all from the bottom of my heart.