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Cyclone Tracy, 50 years on

Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin in December 1974. Now, 50 years later, The Weekly revisits stories of those who lived through Cyclone Tracy.
An aerial photo of destroyed homes in Darwin after Cyclone Tracy.
Darwin after Cyclone Tracy.

Cyclone Tracy was one of the most destructive natural disasters in Australia’s history. When The Weekly flew into Darwin on Boxing Day 1974, we found a city laid waste and the Jones family in their front yard among the wreckage of their home.

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Our cover shot of one-year-old Gavin became the iconic image of the disaster, galvanising Australians in our greatest relief effort since World War II. Now, 50 years later, we revisit the Jones family and others who lived through Cyclone Tracy.

The Christmas cyclone

Imagine this. It is Christmas Eve, 1974. Your parents, your husband, the twins, your daughter and the family dog are all in a rented station wagon. You are convinced that not everyone is getting out of this station wagon alive.

Rain lashes the car; powered by winds gusting up to 280km an hour. The downpour slices through the city, shredding trees. The winds toss around cars, white goods and furniture like the toys of a giant baby. It’s well past midnight, but outside it’s as bright as a summer noon, lit by constant shards of lightning. The roof of the neighbour’s house becomes airborne at speed. It once provided sanctuary but now is a gigantic knife that could slice a person in half. The sky is full of glass, shattering and flying indiscriminately. The winds even swept up your kitchen. The utensils with which the family had planned to celebrate Christmas have joined this horror show — weaponised in the air.

A young girl stands at a fence near the wreckage of a building in Darwin.
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A storm brews over the northern city

Darwin’s houses, built mostly on stilts to combat the heat, are easy prey for the storm. The winds rush through the ground level and toss the wooden houses. The humidity is stifling in the car. Nobody can move much. The kids doze off. After a while, it gets quiet — a glorious respite — and then it starts up again. The sound is louder than any machine you’ve heard. You pray that the carport brick wall holds. And you wait, hoping against hope that the reaper will fly past your little family.

The wind drops as dawn approaches. Eventually, it’s safe to get out of the car. As you survey this apocalypse, your mum says it reminds her of the London Blitz. The difference is that the Luftwaffe left a few buildings standing. You’re looking at a town that a storm has blown back to the Stone Age.

This was how Diane Bowers, Ian Bradford and their children weathered Cyclone Tracy, in a carport in Macredie Street, Nakara, a northern suburb of Darwin.

The lead-up to Cyclone Tracy

Cyclone Tracy was born as a tropical depression over the Arafura Sea on December 20. At first, meteorologists thought of Tracy as a storm like any other. Its trajectory suggested it would burn itself out safely away from Darwin.

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“It was coming down the northwest coast, off the Tiwi Islands, way above Darwin, doing what most of those [storms] do. They just keep going to the southwest. They crash into the Kimberley, and everything is fine,” says Jared Archibald, Curator of Territory History at the Museum and Art Gallery of the NT (MAGNT).

However, by December 23, forecasters were raising concerns. The Bureau of Meteorology warned of heavy rainfall and strong winds and the government released advisories. But it was almost Christmas. Residents had shopping to do, feasts to prepare, family to welcome. Who had time to pay attention to the radio? Storms were a fact of life in Darwin and Cyclone Selma had passed by uneventfully just weeks before.

Family outside their destroyed home in Darwin after Cyclone Tracy with a sign that says, 'Anyhow. Happy New Year.'

Residents prepare for an incoming storm

Some, like Jacoba and her husband, Peter, did what they could to prepare. “We listened to the radio,” she explains, “but you had no idea you were going to get wiped out. You did know a cyclone was coming and you did the normal things of tying down your stuff and putting everything undercover and hoping for the best.” But nothing would have been enough.

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By mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve, the storm had changed trajectory and was aiming directly for Darwin. It was a very small cyclone — just 50 kilometres wide — but it was precise and deadly. By late evening, Tracy was a category 4 cyclone, with winds greater than 217km an hour and gusting to nearly 280km. It hit Darwin just after midnight.

The humidity had hung in the air even thicker than usual that evening. Then, the wind increased until it howled through the streets like a parliament of banshees.

Cyclone Tracy lands

“We went to bed anyway and kept the radio on,” Jacoba tells The Weekly. “Then the radio stopped, and we were on our own. We were lying in bed just waiting for something to happen. We didn’t know what, but it wasn’t going to be good. When the walls started moving, we got the children out of bed and moved into the bathroom. We filled up the bath like we were told.

“As parents, you have to pull up your courage, and I think we did that and made it all seem pretty normal.

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“We didn’t know how frightened we should have been until after the whole event was finished.”

When the bathroom began to shudder, the Brearleys made a precarious dash, carrying the children down their external back stairs, wind howling, the air whirling with debris. They took shelter in their Kombi van under the house.

Di Bowers found a similar solution. “There were four adults, three children and two dogs,” she recalls. “When the neighbour’s roof came off, it hit the side of our house, so all the windows smashed in on that side. The boys were in their cots and they got showered with glass. We grabbed a baby each and my daughter, and Mum, Dad and I crawled down the back stairs and got in the car. Ian went to the kitchen to get some bottles for the twins.”

Nearby, the Jones family sheltered in a granny flat. It was only accessible by a tiny window as debris was already blocking the doorway. Margie Jones sent her husband, Spike, back to the house for the Christmas presents. Incredibly, their Christmas tree survived the cyclone and has since given 50 years of service.

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Daughter Tansy recalls that night well.

“I wasn’t terribly frightened until Mum told us to put our feet on the wall. She said, ‘if you don’t, the wall will fall in on us’. I looked at the wall and it was moving.” So she and her sister, Hesta, “put our feet up there really quick and pushed as hard as we could”.

Tansy Jones

The aftermath of the cyclone

By the early hours of Christmas morning, the entire landscape was ripping apart piece by piece. Furthermore, many residents, realising too late the severity of the storm, huddled in bathrooms, under tables, or in closets, using any cover they could find. The winds reduced timber homes to matchsticks. Even concrete buildings were damaged. In fact, seventy per cent of homes in Darwin were destroyed. Ultimately, ninety-four per cent were uninhabitable.

The cyclone decimated the harbour. “Twenty-one people died at sea,” Jared explains. “Of the 55 vessels on the harbour, 24 were sunk. Two of the ships were lost for 30 years. The bodies were never recovered. I think they had their own hell, and people on land had their hell.” Nineteen boats were lifted from their moorings and tossed onto the land.

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Christmas morning after the cyclone

When the winds finally ceased and dawn broke on December 25, the city was submerged in debris. Twisted metal sheets, broken timber and fallen power lines created impassable barricades.

“I remember waking up that morning,” says Tansy. “Everything was gone. I don’t remember seeing any of the neighbours. I remember the smell of the mouldy stuff. We went for a walk around town, and all the shops were chucking everything out.”

The cyclone killed at least 66 people. Many more suffered injuries or were missing. A commune of hippies living in treehouses beside the harbour disappeared without a trace.

The local Larrakia people were mostly accounted for, but record-keeping was inexact. Furthermore, there were reports some of the older people had travelled inland before the storm.

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“I know that a lot of the traditional mob, they actually left,” one Larrakia respondent told a 2011 study. “They were reading the weather signs and the warnings from the animals.”

For the Larrakia, whose ancestral lands were shattered by Tracy, the aftermath carried both a physical and cultural toll. Elders described the emotional impact of being displaced from their lands.

A family walks pasts a fallen telegraph pole and debris from buildings in Darwin after Cyclone Tracy.

Searching for loved ones and first responses

All across Darwin, families combed through wreckage, calling out names, and searching for any sign of those who were still missing. Some survivors found their neighbours’ homes reduced to rubble, while others found the bodies of friends and relatives.

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In the dawn light, a large ship, the Nyanda, sailed into Darwin from the west. Captain Roy Marsh, who had no inkling of what had happened in the night, was stunned by the sight of the city. The ship’s log noted that the Nyanda was “an oasis of normalcy in the devastation of Darwin”.

Thankfully, basic hospital services survived but there was no fresh water, electricity, sewerage, or telecommunication. Phone lines were down and radio contact had largely been severed. So the rest of Australia blithely went about its Christmas morning, unwrapping presents and tossing shrimp on the barbie, unaware of the devastation to its north.

Around lunchtime, Major General Alan Stretton briefed acting Prime Minister Jim Cairns, who wrote a blank cheque for disaster relief.

Boxes and canned goods stacked on tables in a room. Two women sort the cans.
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From there, word spread fast. Keith Bushnell, an ABC cameraman stationed in Darwin, drove around the remains of the city making a record of the tragedy. The film went to Sydney on the first RAAF plane out. And on one of the first flights in, came a journalist and a photographer from The Weekly.

Our correspondent, Jean Debelle, wrote:

“Just seeing Darwin comes as a shock. Nothing can prepare you for the sight of this appalling, devastated city. I have seen wholesale destruction from bombing, napalm, chemical defoliation in Vietnam. I have seen terrorist-bombed buildings in other parts of the world. But nothing prepared me for this.”

Yet it seemed the spirit of Darwin was invincible, and it was captured in intimate detail by The Weekly’s photographer, Keith Barlow, who flew in mid-morning on Boxing Day.

“In the hotel rooms left standing,” he told his editors, “we’re sleeping in wet blankets. There’s a premium on food. I’ve been getting by on a couple of apples. The only buildings left are big, solid ones. For the rest, it’s like Hiroshima. It’s too terrible.”

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The image that stopped the nation

Walking past the busted bric-a-brac outside what was once the Jones’ family home, Keith came upon one-year-old Gavin with his sister’s Raggedy Andy doll. They made the cover of The Weekly in an image that perfectly captured the humanity behind the headlines that Christmas. The picture has followed Gavin for 50 years. “Oh, everyone’s seen it,” he jokes now. “Whenever I start a new job, it comes up.”

Cover of Women's Weekly magazine with a child crying beside a doll surrounded by cyclone wreckage.
The cover that stopped a nation, taken by The Weekly’s photographer, Keith Barlow.

The whole family was in the front yard at the time. To lift spirits, Margie had made a sign that read: “Anyhow, Happy New Year”. And with typical Darwin ingenuity, Spike had magnetised horseshoes and tied them with string to the girls’ shoes, so they could wander around the wreckage collecting nails.

It turned out that primary and high schools were sturdier than most structures and some became evacuation centres and local hubs for distributing food. People sheltered where they could.

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“For many people, electricity, telephones, meals eaten at a table from a china plate, were luxuries yet to come,” Jean wrote. But gradually the situation improved. Concerned citizens and relief organisations flew in food, soft drinks and even beer. “Though to get them meant standing in a queue, shuffling along, sometimes in the heat of midday … No one complains.”

Queue of people outside a building in Darwin.

The nation learns of Cyclone Tracy

The media communicated the enormity of the disaster to the rest of Australia, and with its vast circulation and national reach, The Weekly’s role was crucial.

“When Australia really realised what had happened,” says Jared Archibald, “the empathy began.”

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Unsurprisingly, Tracy inspired a massive relief effort. The Weekly, the Nine Network and News Ltd launched a telethon, on which every Australian star, from Bert and Patti Newton to Dame Edna Everage, appeared, raising $3,089,873 — three times its goal. Furthermore, in suburbs and towns around Australia, all kinds of charities and community groups set about raising money. Prime Minister Gough Whitlam returned from Europe and gave an ironclad commitment that the government would stand behind the people of Darwin and rebuild the city. The nation was unified in the rescue effort as it hadn’t been since World War II.

People queuing by tables of food.

Darwin is evacuated

Major General Alan Streeton was on the ground by 10.30pm on Christmas night. Afterwards, he made the controversial decision to immediately reduce the population by two-thirds. The concerns were a lack of shelter, water, sewerage and medical supplies. There was every possibility of an outbreak of disease such as cholera or typhoid.

“So the evacuation started,” says Jared. “Every plane that was coming to Darwin brought medical supplies, essential goods, building materials, generators, anything that was needed. And they flew back full of evacuees.”

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A crowd of people walk towards a plane.

Thereupon, the government moved nearly 30,000 people — mostly women and children — in the largest evacuation in Australian history.

Some of the Larrakia community refused to leave. One woman later told researchers: “I’m the same as my mother, I’m not leaving … The whole of Australia is beautiful but there’s no place like home. My heart … this is what we do, we care for our Country, we protect our Country.”

Many families were ripped apart. Diane Bower’s husband, Ian, worked for the PMG as a lineman, so was a critical worker. The rest of the family was shunted off south. Tansy’s dad was a policeman. She has a photo of him patrolling the streets to deter looters while the rest of the family was billeted in Queensland.

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As Darwinians faced the awful reality that they had lost everything and their future was uncertain, there was an emotional toll.

“That was the first time I’d ever seen Mum cry. We were watching TV. It must have been the first day Dad had joined us. There was this pretty green bug on my finger. Mum grabbed a tissue and squashed it, and I started crying. Dad got angry, and then Mum started crying. They weren’t themselves. Mum and Dad never had an angry word between them, ever. We had such a peaceful, happy house. And then after [Tracy], anything just set him off.”

Tansy Jones

Recovery after the storm

Eventually, the family settled back to normal, but there was never any support offered for psychological or emotional recovery. Some, like Tansy’s mother, never recovered from the trauma. She had loved Darwin and its lifestyle but couldn’t bear to go back there. Di and Ian, however, rebuilt their house, and Jacoba and Peter relocated to Perth but returned to Darwin.

For all the families, the lessons and memories of that night will last a lifetime. “You learnt not to get attached to many expectations or outcomes,” says Di. “For a long time, ‘stuff’ was less important. Now, after 50 years, there is a different feeling about Tracy, but it’s not diminished. For people who went through Tracy, it has not diminished in any way, shape or form.”

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A new permanent Cyclone Tracy exhibition opened at MAGNT on December 7, 2024.

This article originally appeared in the Christmas Issue 2024 of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Pick up the latest issue from your local newsagents, or subscribe so you never miss the latest drop.

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