Cyclone Tracy

On December 20, 1974 the United States ESSA-8 environmental satellite recorded a large cloud mass centered over the Arafura Sea, about 230 miles northeast of Darwin, Australia.  Darwin is the biggest town in Australia’s Northern Territories.  It is isolated, independent and proudly, “Outback.”  Like all coastal communities in the tropics (it is well inside the Tropic of Capricorn) it receives a great deal of violent weather.  Clouds building up in the Arafura Sea are business as usual.   Never-the-less, the Darwin Weather Bureau began tracking them.

            On December 21^st, satellite evidence showed a newly formed circular center and senior meteorologist, Geoff Crane, issued the initial tropical cyclone alert.  Later that evening another U.S. satellite (NOAA-4) showed spiraling clouds around the eye and Cyclone (Hurricane) Tracy was officially named at 10 p.m. that evening.  It was first observed on the Darwin radar on December 22, passing in a southwesterly direction and the local news declared it to be no threat to the city.  But as Tracy rounded Bathurst Island it changed direction, moving southeasterly and heading straight for Darwin.

            Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin on Christmas Eve, 1974.  A category 4 as it built, and a Cat-3 when it came ashore it was the most compact system the modern world had ever seen.   The anemometer at the Darwin Airport recorded a top wind speed of 135 mph minutes before it was destroyed.  The Bureau of Meteorology officially estimates the gusts at 150 mph.  Tracy killed 71 people, caused (in current dollars) $4.5 billion in damage and, remarkably, destroyed more than 70% of Darwin’s buildings, including 80% of its homes.  Darwin had 47,000 people in 1974, and Cyclone Tracy left 41,000 of them homeless.

            How does a city rebuild after that kind of devastation?  First, you deal with the extraordinary circumstances in extraordinary ways.  The Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, stated that, “…Darwin had, for the time being, ceased to exist as a city.”  Martial law was declared and the city was evacuated.  Airplanes from both the military and civilian sector were pressed into service and 30,000 people were evacuated south.  Most left by air, others by car, with the small towns that occupy Australia’s, “Red Center” spontaneously providing food, petrol and shelter to the evacuees along the way. 

            With people safe and out of the way, the process of cleaning up the mess began.  First, they declared the city lost, bulldozed the buildings and built from scratch, always with the idea of making Darwin better, smarter and safer.  Today, Darwin is a fresh, sparkling city with public buildings bigger and better than its small population would seem to merit.  It is a lovely city, risen from the ashes.

            Tom and I were touring the Northern Territories Museum in Darwin, where they have an entire gallery devoted to Cyclone Tracy.  This is the even around which the town’s history pivots.  I saw pictures there, which reminded me of the total devastation that accompanied the Good Friday Earthquake in Alaska, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.  But New Orleans is still in shambles, with whole sections of the city still as they were after the storm.  Darwin and Anchorage are rebuilt and working.  Why?

I think the difference is the work ethic of the people involved.  If you live in a frontier environment and are used to, “doing” for yourself, chances are you will see catastrophe as a challenge instead of a defeat.  If you see the land as your tool, and a city as a statement of self you will want both to be pointed to with pride.  It comes down to the stuff you are made of. 

Darwin kept the faith.