Cyclone Tracy survivor Annemarie Scholl slept through Fina 51 years on
Annemarie Scholl refers to Cyclone Tracy as one of two scariest events of her life, but a sporting triumph for her chosen country helped her sleep through Fina. Read about her experience.
Only once, as a young child in Berlin during wartime bombing, did Annemarie Scholl remember being as scared as she was on the night of Cyclone Tracy.
As their Moil home disintegrated around them when a massive beam crashed through the roof, Annemarie her partner and children aged 14 and two fled to a neighbour’s house where they sheltered in the hall until the worst of the cyclone passed.
Fifty-one years later, Annemarie had a vastly different experience with Cyclone Fina; for the first time in her long history of weathering cyclones in Darwin, she slept through the whole show.
In part, German born Annemarie can thank the English for sleeping soundly. It was their First Test batting collapse in Perth on Sunday evening that sent her to bed early.
“I was well prepared (for Fina) because I remember Cyclone Tracy, but over the news it sounded like it wouldn’t be as bad as Cyclone Tracy, but it could have been as bad as Cyclone Marcus,” she said.
In 2018, Category 2 Tropical Cyclone Marcus hit Darwin, flattening an estimated 100,000 trees and noticeably thinning the city’s green landscape.
“So I thought, ‘oh well, I can handle that and then when the evening came and it didn’t get more stormy, I put on the television and there was cricket on, and it was the most amazing session that I watched.
“We won the game and it was hilarious. I was so happy and the game was finished and I thought, ‘I better go to bed and sleep somewhat and if it gets worse, I’ll probably wake up’, and I never woke up until morning came.”
Preparation is the key to riding out tropical cyclones, and to this day since Cyclone Tracy, Annemarie meticulously removes any objects that could be hurled about by tropical winds.
“I’m not scared of cyclones anymore, because I keep thinking it can never be as bad as that.
She wasn’t the only Cyclone Tracy survivor facing Fina 51 years on from the big Christmas storm.
Eric Tingey moved to Australia at the age of 18 and in the years since the 84-year-old has seen more than his fair share of cyclones, including Tracy.
The Pearl Nursing Home resident remembers the 1974 catastrophe well as an event where many Darwinites lost everything.
“It wasn’t good, we were living in Moil and we lost everything,” he said. “I had a wife and two kids and we had no food for three days, it wasn’t good.
“We spent the cyclone in the broom cupboard, the rest of the house blew away.”
The experience changed the landscape of Darwin with houses now built to cyclone code.
“Houses are built different now, they’re a lot stronger, everything’s better,” he said.
But in the lead up to Fina when asked on whether he was worried about the incoming system he said he was not.
“I’m 84 first of all, if it takes me, it takes me,” he said.
“But I don’t think it will, I think it will pepper out.”
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