Dreams destroyed in Cyclone Seroja nightmare

Liz and Geoff Moody were sheltering under a mattress in their hallway when Cyclone Seroja ripped the roof off and caved in the walls of their garage.

The devastation caused by ex-Tropical Cyclone Seroja after it crossed over the West Australian town of Kalbarri. Picture: Grahame Kelaher

Liz and Geoff Moody were sheltering under a mattress in their hallway with their west highland terrier Cooper when Cyclone Seroja ripped the roof off and caved in the walls of their garage.

Ms Moody, 65, was on a ­messaging app with the couple’s two daughters trying to reassure them with humour and winking emojis that all was OK.

The couple emerged from the ruins of their dream house on Monday morning to find the landscaped gardens of their 1.2ha property a wasteland. “It’s all gone,” Ms Moody told daughter Kerry Watson by phone.

The first cyclone to hit Western Australia’s mid coast in 65 years sounded like a fleet of freight trains, Ms Moody said.

Houses in the small coastal town of Kalbarri were not built for this. Several homes were razed when the Category-3 system hit the coast about 700km north of Perth at 7pm on Sunday.

Cyclone Seroja damaged about 70 per cent of Kalbarri’s buildings and left hundreds temporarily homeless as it marched southeast. Late on Monday, entire towns were without power. An estimated 31,500 households and businesses were cut off.

Seroja surprised even experienced meteorologists when it changed direction in the Indian Ocean last week and began tracking towards a section of the Australian mainland about 1100km south of the Pilbara, which is the most southerly region to typically bear the brunt of cyclone season in WA.

Seroja caused so much damage in part because it approached the coast at a steep angle. It lashed towns along a 533km stretch of coast from the fruit-growing Gascoyne region to the port of Geraldton, 400km north of Perth.

“The damage has been devastating, absolutely heartbreaking for many people,” WA Premier Mark McGowan said.

Seroja had lost only a fraction of its power on Sunday night when it hit Northampton. Wind gusts of up to 140km/h pulled the roof off the historic Railway Tavern and damaged houses.

The One Mile Jetty in Carnarvon was washed away and in the World Heritage-listed region of Shark Bay, the Monkey Mia resort was damaged.

An electrician died in the build-up to Seroja as he tended to a power pole in rainy weather.

There were no known fatalities or serious injuries during the cyclone, although emergency services were still trying to reach some people.

Liz and Geoff Moody, whose dream home, fruit trees and native gardens have been wiped out by the storm.

The McGowan government established three evacuation centres and its Department of Communities was offering displaced people emergency accommodation and other essentials.

Federal Emergency Management Minister David Littleproud said the Australian Defence Force would provide a C-130J Hercules aircraft for medical and other evacuations, and to transport emergency services personnel and supplies, including food, water and generators to communities in need.

Like tens of thousands of other residents in the state’s mid-west, the Moodys were cut off from loved ones for much of Monday because phone reception and internet were not working.

Ms Watson, who lives in the mining town of Kalgoorlie some 1200km from Kalbarri, managed a short phone conversation with her parents on Monday in which they let her know the extent of damage to their property.

“They were digging around through the rubble looking for precious things like photos and holiday mementos,” she said.

“They were very tired. They hadn’t slept.”

Liz and Geoff Moody were huddled in their Kalbarri house, 700km north of Perth, when Cyclone Seroja peeled off the roof and sent it flying into the nearby national park. Then the garage caved in.

It was an enormous relief to Ms Watson, her sister and their brother when they learned their parents were OK and with each other. However, Ms Watson said she felt a lot of sadness that the place her parents loved most was destroyed.

She said her father, a retired mine worker, and her mother, a former retail worker, had “saved up their whole lives for that block”. The fruit trees and native gardens Ms Moody had cultivated over the past 10 years were “just sticks”.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “A cyclone this far south is not something anyone would plan for.”

The last time the mid coast of WA was buffeted by cyclonic winds was on March 3 and 4 in 1956, before cyclones were given names.

Records show that on those days, wind gusts of 140km an hour hit Geraldton.

The most devastating cyclone to reach the southern half of WA was Alby in 1978. It carried little rain and lashed the south coast town of Albany, whipping up bushfires.

On Monday night, Seroja had dumped welcome rain in the wheatbelt and weakened to a tropical low as it headed back out to sea near the south coast town of Esperance.