Mike Coles – Cyclone Tracy Cleanup Photos

These previously unpublished photos were submitted by Mike Coles. He writes:

• I was in Darwin for about three months as a PMG (later Telecom, Telstra) technician, from early January. The house with 3165 on it is where we lived for that time, at first without a roof, just tarps overhead). It belonged to Barry Hughes family, and was on the corner of Freer St and Worgan Street Fanny Bay, just near the racecourse. Barry is in one pic looking out of the end “bedroom”, and there is also one of me sitting in that spot. A couple of internal shots also of our living conditions, and the characters – a floating population of around 8-10 or so PMG technicians lodged there in the first few months, and despite the living conditions quite a bit of fun was had at times.
• The boat pictured is the Charles Todd, the PMG boat to take workers over to the (then) Radio Australia site on Cox Peninsula. It was found under the Stokes Hill wharf weeks after the cyclone.
• The airport photos all seem self-explanatory, taken when I visited looking for workable equipment to recover (there wasn’t much!)
• Also some photos of the Stuart Park area looking toward Francis Bay (a view which had never been seen from there before)
• And some of the northern and other suburbs; I spent quite a bit of my spare time early on out there at evacuated friends’ houses recovering what I could salvage of their personal belongings and returning them south via free transport the PMG offered for employees. Not without written authorization though, in case I was mistaken as a looter!

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