Fifty years on my most vivid memory is of the noise of the wind, roaring like jet engine. I believe the eye of Althea crossed the coast around Rollingstone and that Townsville received the full force of the cyclone’s southern and strongest side. Others talk about the eye crossing the city but I don’t remember this. Regardless, this was a storm like no other I have experienced before or since. It was a morning of absolute destruction the day before Christmas.

``WE knew at five o’clock that morning that Althea was coming. Throughout the long night the radio announcer had read the cyclone warnings, giving details of Althea’s location, speed, direction, barometric pressure and wind velocities. Althea would hit the coast somewhere between Cape Cleveland and Cardwell. But on that dark morning, the day before Christmas, we knew it was Townsville’s turn. We had escaped trouble for too long. Besides, the wind gusts were rising, slamming sheets of rain against the walls and windows.

The house began to shudder. It too seemed to know that Althea was on the way.’’

So begins my late father’s account of that fateful day, December 24, 1971.

I was a 13-year-old boy not long having moved from Melbourne. I had completed my first year at Pimlico — the biggest school in Queensland at that time.

I remember Dad coming home from work about 5pm. It was hot and humid but there was no real sign of the drama about to unfold.

``Do you think it will come?’’ I asked.

``I don’t know,’’ he said. ``I don’t suppose anyone knows yet. They change direction so often.’’

``I hope it does,’’ I said.

He suggested I might regret my wish.

In the last hours before sunset we cleared away loose objects which could fly in the wind. The spare water tank was filled in case the reticulation system failed. Candles and a torch were placed in easy reach. Tools, including a hammer and nails, were taken upstairs. An old lifeboat Dad had salvaged from Ross Creek and was rebuilding in the back yard was anchored down with rope and steel pegs from the tent. We used to call it the Ark.

``What shall we do with the cats? Do you think we should lock them in the house tonight,’’ Mum asked.

It was decided this was unnecessary. Cats were supremely capable of attending to their own comfort and welfare, Dad said. (And he was right, Tom and Smokey both survived).

We didn’t know it then but he was acutely conscious of the protection we would need from the house. A typical old North Queensland home, it is large and airy and constructed on 2m-high posts. It is near The Strand in Rose St, North Ward. It was well built of timber but he worried it was more vulnerable than bricks and mortar.

The wind began to pick up in the evening and it started to rain.

Dad’s diary reads: ``We watched television until transmission stopped to hear the last weather bulletin.

``A charming young announcer in Brisbane read a forecast issued two hours earlier but the local station told us Althea was still more than a hundred miles (160km) nor’ north east, travelling south west toward the coast.

``We went to bed with mixed emotions of uncertainty, concern and excitement contributing to an air of expectancy in the house.

``After all, we were living in the tropics where such events were not unusual. We were soon to witness a drama we had only read about or seen on films. Something we had not experienced before.

``By 2am the wind was gusting strongly. Outside, low white clouds raced in from the sea, silhouetted against a heavy black cumulus overhead. In the house the noise of the wind and rain competed with pop tunes and static from the radio.

``In the stronger squalls, the house trembled. But there was no way of knowing whether this blustering wind heralded the approach of a fiercer blow or merely indicated the far edge of the cyclone was passing through the city.

``The radio warnings indicated Althea was still spinning far out to sea, heading towards a stretch of coast 100 miles (160km) long. But those gusts at 2am were threatening. It seemed unlikely they would just fade away.

``By 5am Althea’s course had deviated slightly but was still travelling southwest towards the coast at five to 10mph. It was going to hit the coast somewhere between Cape Cleveland and Ingham.’’

We rose just after five. Mum prepared an early breakfast in case the power went off. It was a fine meal of cereals, eggs, bacon, mince, toast and marmalade. As we ate, the wind gusts began to rise.

Dad’s account continues: ``The bureau had forecast winds exceeding 100mph at the cyclone’s centre and we tried to guess the speed of those first gusts. Of course we failed but there was no doubt of Althea’s power and capacity to destroy. The situation we had half anticipated some hours before now was actually going to occur. It was a serious matter. Althea was knocking at our door.

``The wind force began to accelerate steadily. It came in sharp pulsating bursts each seeming stronger than those it preceded. It became difficult to stay in one place for more than a few moments. The situation seemed to demand activity of some kind. The doors at the front and back of the house and the windows acquired an irresistible fascination. In the street blasts of wind and rain whistled in the wires. At the back of the house it roared across the yard, trees writhing before its force.’’

``It’s getting stronger!’’ I shouted.

The house shuddered as a blast from the southeast hit its front and side. Windows rattled and the floor moved under our feet. We opened more windows and shutters on the leeward side as the experts advised to reduce pressure under the roof.

``The frangipani tree is down!’’

Through a gap in the window we took turns to confirm that this beautiful old tree had blown down. We loved that big old shady tree and the great mass of pink blossoms it carried for so long each year. But it also proved, at least in part, our undoing. It fell against the side of the house, loosening the first sheets of iron from the roof.

We moved to the sheltered back porch which gave us a grandstand view of the houses of Yarrawonga and Castle Hill. The wind was gusting now with unbelievable ferocity, surging like some gigantic engine. The trees on Castle Hill were stripped of leaves and objects — timber, branches and all manner of household items — began to be carried on the wind.

``God, did you see that?’’

An entire brick carport attached to a house on Yarrawonga collapsed into rubble before our eyes. The bricks were picked off one by one and swept hundreds of metres through the air. It was about this time that our French double doors at the front of the house blew in and the sideshow was over. Instantly the front living room was filled with water up to our ankles. You could smell the salt. It was raining horizontally.

It took as much strength as my two brothers and I could muster to hold the doors closed while Dad nailed planks of wood to the door posts only for the doors to burst open again. It was as much as a fully grown man and three strapping youths could do to close the doors and planks were nailed in a wild frenzy in every available position. The doors held.

Next we were given a lesson in pressure. The ceiling in the centre room where we had shifted the beds to sleep the night — supposedly for safety — imploded. Shards of fibro crashed down, the sharp ends embedding in the floor. Then the roof went and it was absolute chaos.

On the western side of the house we watched in awe and horror as an entire section of roof lifted clear from the walls as if in slow motion. It crashed against the house next door and disintegrated in a flying mass of timber and iron.

The roof had gone in all but the kitchen, bathroom and part of the dining room — a small section at the back of the house. We were exposed with only the walls to protect us and above us we could see the black and angry sky.

Water was running down the walls. We tried to salvage what we could but everything was saturated. A table was stood on end to barricade the entrance to the dining room from the living room at the front. We dived on to a mattress under a table in the dining room and clung to each other for dear life.

We remained there for quite some time. The tongue-in-groove walls shook, groaned and buckled but miraculously they held. We emerged from our hiding place some time after 9am to a scene of utter destruction. It was difficult to know what to do, We mostly just sat there bemused and soaking wet eating almonds, nuts and Christmas cake. We thanked our lucky stars we had survived.

Months of hardship followed. A metre of rain fell the following January and though the Army had given us tarpaulins for the roof, there were leaks everywhere. We slept under sheets of plastic. Nights of a thousand drips blurred into weeks. Because of the shortage of labour and materials it was March before the roof was replaced and so electrical wiring could not be replaced. We had no power for three months! I wonder how I and others would cope with that now.

As I re-read my father’s account, heading into another wet season, it sends a shiver down my spine. Will it ever come back? Probably, he would say. Do I want that? No I don’t. I hope by then that I will be long gone.

tony.raggatt@news.com.au