Christmas that was blown away

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34021, 10 December 1975, Page 6

Christmas that was blown away

Christmas in Darwin this year is likely to be one of good cheer as residents prepare special festivities to compensate for the occasion they missed in the destruction that followed Cyclone Tracy.

One couple, Clare and Bruce Wernham, have been lon a visit to New Zealand. . They have a special appointment to keep in Darwin — a Christmas celebration (with the same group of people), that was to have taken place 12 months ago. Everyone was preoccupied with Christmas festivities on ! a wet muggy Christmas Eve in 1974. People had taken heed of the cyclone warn-j ings and had taken pre-! cautions, but they were not seriously concerned. Darwin had lived through cyclones before. Constable Bruce Wernham had just graduated into the Northern Territory police force and had been living in Darwin for two months. Cyclone Tracy hit on his third day of duty at the Casuarina police station.

To prepare for the cyclone, Mrs Wernham had taken everything off the walls in the flat, and filled up water containers and unpacked a gas stove and light.

Weird sky By 11 p.m. that night the cyclone was being taken seriously. Mrs Wernham said yesterday that she had gone to collect her husband from work, taking their dog with her. It was raining and blowing hard, the thunder roared and shook the car, and the sky was lit up by the lightning in weird colours of purple and green.

It took her 20 minutes to drive the three miles and a further hour waiting in the car outside the station before she was assisted inside.

An hour before midnight the police were receiving calls from people in distress. Patrol cars were blown sideways along roads with sheets of corrugated iron plastered against the doors. Policemen had collected their wives and children and taken them to the Casuarina police station for shelter. Mattresses were spread on the floor of the low building and the group of 60 people watched in awe as the! office partitions gave way.

During the course of the! night, the women and chil-i . dren moved from one office; to the next as the ceiling gave way. The noise was deafening and the night was lit in bizarre shadows and shapes. There was “absolute hovoc” for six hours, but by 6 a.m. it was starting to ease off. The northern suburbs of Casuarina, Tiwi and Wagaman were the worst hit, said Mrs Wernham.

As soon as it was light, nobody could believe the devastation.

Darwin was a scene of destruction as the Wernhams drove a borrowed car along the streets to their home. Their flat remained as a flimsy structure. A few clothes were retrieved. The Christmas turkey lay on the ground. The two-storey flats next door had fallen "on to their apartment. Good spirit Everyone was doing as well as they could under the circumstances. People sat on the floorboards of their homes, shouting “Merry Christmas” to each other while they drank cans of beer and ate Christmas cake. Mrs Wernham said it was “just fortunate that the tide had been receding, otherwise the houses would have been 10ft under water.”

On Christmas Night the urgent cases, the injured, pregnant women, and paraplegics were moved from

Darwin and flown to other cities. The operation to repair the damage had begun, and there was no room for women and children to stay, so they too were evacuated. Mrs Wernham went to Mount Gambier, in South Australia, for five weeks. lu caravan During that time she waited for telephone calls from her husband in Darwin, and' read the exaggerated and sensationalised reports in the papers telling of death tolls amounting to 300, and of looters being shot.

Now, Darwin is just about back to normal — but there are reminders everywhere. The spirit of Darwin still remains, and Mrs Wernham said the people were fairly easygoing. The Wernhams are now living in a caravan, and may still be there in another two years. Mrs Wernham said she did not think about getting a house. People had invented ways to make their homes more comfortable and had used all sorts of resources to cope. Darwin’s monsoon season has brought new life to the trees, and the grass is green. There is a community spirit among the people who remain in Darwin during the wet season, and Christmas is going to be extra special they say, with no expense spared for the children, to try to compensate for last year.