Harbour City weathered many a violent tempest
If you think this week’s weather is foul spare a thought for those living in Sydney and beyond back in July, 1912, when the full fury of a winter storm hit the city.
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If you think this week’s weather is foul spare a thought for those living in Sydney and beyond back in July, 1912, when the full fury of a winter storm hit the city. It was a tropical storm that had made its way down from Queensland and the papers described “monsoonal activity” and cyclonic winds lashing the coast as far south as Ulladulla, where a 40ft-long (12m) whale washed up in the main street.
Meanwhile, in Sydney, at Bondi people were bemused by the sudden appearance of a giant sandstone boulder on the rock platform below the cliffs at Ben Buckler.
The rock, estimated to weigh over 200 tonnes, was thought to have been washed up out of the ocean by the towering surf. However, some people argued it had always been there and the storm had washed away rocks around the boulder, making it more prominent. Another theory was that it broke away from the cliffs above.
A plaque was later fixed to the rock reading: “Municipality of Waverley. This rock weighing 235 tons was washed from the sea during a storm on 15 July, 1912. January 1933. J.S. MacKinnon. Town Clerk.” In the 1960s sculptures of mermaids were commissioned for the rock. The boulder is often cited as an example of the extremes of Sydney weather.
The Cadigal people have stories about violent storms playing a part in the formation of the land. The word Tamarama, the name given to the suburb bordering Bondi, is actually a Cadigal word for thunderclap, perhaps a reference as much to the storms as the sound of high seas hitting the cliffs.
When the First Fleet arrived in 1788 the ships were threatened by wild winds that nearly drove them on to rocks. Several officers also noted the terrible thunderstorms that struck the Harbour settlement.
In a February, 1788, journal entry Lt Ralph Clark wrote “above all the Places in the world this is the most terrible for thunder and lightening (sic) — there has not a day gone over our heads but there has been Seveer (sic) thunder and Lighting.”
March of that year was very wet, July experienced a 40-hour gale that produced huge seas and the foul weather continued battering the settlement until August.
Marine officer Watkin Tench reported that in July and August they experienced more “inclement tempestuous weather than had been observed of any former period of equal duration”.
As Sydney grew it suffered many more storm shocks over the years, causing damage to buildings on land as well as resulting in loss of life from ships being dashed by the wind and waves on to rocks. A severe storm in August, 1857, wrecked the Dunbar off south head, with the loss of 121 lives.
In February, 1898, 30 people were known to have died when a storm, the tail end of a monsoonal cyclone, ripped through Sydney. Among the dead were seven crew aboard the brig Amy. In Sydney verandas were blown away from homes, trees were uprooted and ferry services had to be suspended.
The 1912 storm famous for allegedly lobbing the boulder on shore at Ben Buckler also tossed around “like corks” the 50kg stones from retaining walls lining the Harbour.
A storm in 1927, with winds reaching speeds of 65mp/h (104km/h), dumped 75mm of rain on the city and wrought the usual havoc. A car was swept from the road, trains were thrown into chaos, roofs were torn from houses, trees uprooted and shops demolished. It left 18 people dead in its wake, 10 of them died when a large motor launch capsized, the rest were either struck by lightning, electrocuted by falling power lines or drowned.
One of the biggest Sydney storms of recent decades happened in May, 1974. Considered to be one in 100 years storm, it came on the heels of several severe storms that had dumped rain on the city earlier in the year. For several days in late May the city and coast were battered by winds sometimes reaching over 100km/h, along with lightning and heavy rains, with waves reaching up to 8m.
The storm stripped several beaches inside and outside of the Harbour of their sand. Surf clubhouses were flooded, some of them filled with sand. Manly’s swimming pool pier was severely damaged and at La Perouse the Paragon Restaurant once overlooking the water collapsed into the sea. The storm was so severe it caused a rethink of storm responses and coastal management.
Originally published as Harbour City weathered many a violent tempest
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