Trouble brewing: Is it only a matter of time before another Cyclone Tracy?

With a transient population and decades since Tracy, is Darwin fully prepared for another cyclone? JASON WALLS investigates

Debris and devastation in Darwin’s northern suburbs in the aftermath of Cyclone Tracy, which struck the town on Christmas morning in 1974. Picture: Beat Erismann

WHEN Kon Vatskalis arrived in Darwin 35 years ago, it was a very different city to the tropical hub he presides over as Lord Mayor today.

Cyclone Tracy had ripped through the city less than 10 years earlier and the large-scale destruction left in her wake was still fresh in the minds of the population, even for newcomers like Vatskalis.

In the decades since, there have been a number of near misses, where cyclones have passed nearby the Top End capital – but Tracy has gradually faded into a distant memory.

Stuart Park resident, Ashlee Matthews is cyclone ready. Picture: Patrina Malone

Now, despite constant warnings throughout the Wet season that cyclones remain a clear and present threat, there are fears complacency may have set in and the danger posed by cyclones is no longer taken as seriously as it once was.

Vatskalis is one who believes many Territorians would be unprepared if disaster struck.

“It’s a combination of the transient population and the fact that people now believe that someone else will look after them, the government will look after them,” he says.

“But the reality is in a cyclone, for the first 24 to 48 hours the government will look after themselves and their families rather than go around and look after other people, so we have to rely on ourselves to actually survive the cyclone.

“The new arrivals, they’ve never seen a cyclone, they think it’s quite fun, you get strong winds and a lot of rain. But the reality is cyclones are unpredictable and very powerful, they can cause a lot of damage, injuries and deaths.”

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As the regional manager of the Northern Territory Emergency Service’s northern command, Mark Cunnington is front and centre in not only preparing for and responding to cyclones, but helping educate Top Enders to be cyclone-wise.

Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis believes many Territorians would be unprepared if disaster struck

He says there is reason for optimism that many Territorians are taking the threat seriously, but given the peripatetic nature of Darwin’s population, he admits it’s hard to be sure how well the message get through.

“It’s probably difficult to tell exactly where the public is at with things, we would like to think people are certainly on the ball and have their preparations in place,” Cunnington says.

“Having done some public education presentations early in the season, when asked the question, most of the groups we’re presenting to, which were anything from Northern Territory Government employees through to private organisation employees, a greater part of them indicated they had their kits ready to go.”

But with so many people moving to Darwin from down south and so many years now gone since the last direct hit on the city in 1974, Cunnington says some people may, indeed, be becoming complacent.

“I guess now to a degree we’re lucky in that we have a lot of coastline around us which can affect an incoming cyclone,” he says.

“It can weaken it, it depends which direction it comes from.

“But people do need to take the threat seriously, they do need to understand that when a cyclone goes past us it’s a blessing.

“They have tended to treat some of the cyclones that have gone past us with a bit of disrespect, I guess, for want of a better term, so (it’s about) respecting the fact that cyclones do happen.”

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The good news is that lessons have been learned from Tracy and in the decades since.

Emergency services now have plans in place and ready to go at a moment’s notice. There is also up-to- date information about what the weather is doing and information on how you should prepare has never been more readily available.

Director of Emergency Recovery Colleen Bremner, Commander Brent Warren and NTES Regional Manager North Mark Cunnington

Building practices have also vastly improved. This means the standards to which homes are now built in Darwin these days are designed to withstand such forces.

So even during a cyclone you should literally be as safe as houses.

Master Builders NT executive director David Malone says these days, “by and large, people should feel very comfortable in the homes that they’re in”.

“The Territory’s had a good building code for quite a long period of time,” Malone says.

“That obviously comes from Cyclone Tracy and the experience the city had, so people in a home that’s been built to code should have no problems in most circumstances.

“We have a good system of control, good builders and the homes are built appropriately for the risk that we confront up here.”

That said, Malone says the building code is an “evolutionary document”. That means, if you live in an older house, particularly one that’s been renovated, you could still be vulnerable. It might, therefore, be worth getting a once over from an engineer or building surveyor.

“I think the thing would be, where you have a home where you’re not sure about alterations that have been done, the home when it’s first built will be in accordance with the code,” Malone says.

Darwin after Cyclone Tracy struck. Many believe it’s only a matter of time before another cyclone hits Darwin . Picture: News Ltd

“So people should have reasonable comfort with that. But if there’s been alterations or additions and people aren’t quite sure when they were done or how they were done, if they’ve any concerns, then get one of those guys to take a look.”

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Structural engineer and Engineers Australia northern division committee member, Elisha Harris backs Malone’s assessment of Darwin’s built environment.

“We have to design, for most houses anyway, for what is essentially a one-in-500 year wind event, so we’re talking quite a rare event,” Harris says.

Even for older buildings, Harris says, improvements have often been made in order to improve their structural integrity.

“For instance, one of the common things you see that has been done is there’ll be extra tie-down elements added to roofs,” she says.

“So if something’s been resheeted, typically that will have been upgraded at the same time, so even though it’s a slightly different structure to what you would see in newer houses you will see those upgrade elements.”

And somewhat counterintuitively, Harris says the many highrise apartment blocks and office towers that have sprung up in Darwin since the 1970s may actually be safer than those closer to the ground.

“The highrise buildings are also built in accordance with the same codes and obviously being much larger structures there’s probably a greater deal of scrutiny on them as well,” she says.

“One of the big things that you’ve got to remember during cyclones is that a lot of the damage is done by debris. That means if you’ve got a lot of debris flying around, a lot of that’s flying around down a fair bit lower.

“So I guess, to some extent, if you’re up in the air in a highrise building you’re probably less prone to that sort of stuff.

“You’ve really just got the wind loads to deal with.”

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For his part, the Lord Mayor is also comfortable that Darwin would not be wiped out in the same way it was when Tracy cut her deadly swath through the city in 1974, but his concern about the human element remains.

“My belief is we will cope well because the structures now in Darwin are very strong, we’re not going to have the widespread destruction we had with Tracy, but what worries me is the human part of the equation,” Vatskalis says.

“I say we are prepared because we’ve got the cyclone shelters. They’re fully operational and very well operated as we’ve seen in the past.

“Every time there’s an alert, cyclone shelters open very quickly, they’re manned very quickly and they’re run very effectively.

“But when you’ve got 85 to 90 thousand people in Darwin and something goes seriously wrong, especially in a highrise building – there’s no electricity, are they going to pump water to the 20th floor?

“It’s not the damage to structures, it’s what will happen if people all of a sudden find themselves without water or without food for two or four days.”

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For newcomers to the Top End for whom the reality of the danger posed by cyclones remains purely theoretical, Vatskalis recommends a history lesson.

“If anybody has any doubt they only have to go down to the museum to have a look at the Cyclone Tracy exhibit,” he says. “They’ll get a very good feeling of what a cyclone can do or drive by Casuarina Senior College and have a look at the twisted railway lines ... to see what a cyclone means and what a cyclone can do.

“We cannot be complacent, we have to be prepared. I know it sounds stupid that you have to go to the supermarket and stock up with four days of food, but the reality is if a cyclone happens, there will be no water and no electricity. You will have to rely on yourself to actually survive the four or five days.”

It’s a message wholeheartedly endorsed by the man in charge of emergency services’ efforts to keep the city safe in the event of disaster, Mark Cunnington, who says it’s only a matter of time before the theory has to be put into practice.

“We know that Darwin was wiped out in Tracy, it’s a possibility and every time one goes past it’s a blessing and nothing more than that, so be prepared, be ready to go, because the day will come when we’ll have a serious hit again,” he says.