December 24th 2024.
When Margie Harmsen woke up on December 25, 1974, she was filled with excitement and anticipation for the festivities of Christmas. Along with her siblings, she had spent the previous night huddled in a bathtub with a blanket over their heads, but that didn't dampen their spirits. As she later shared with 9news.com.au, they were still running around and yelling with excitement until their father had to intervene.
Amidst the chaos and excitement, her father's words struck a chord – "For God's sake, there's nothing left." And indeed, there was nothing left for the tens of thousands of residents of Darwin. The devastating aftermath of Cyclone Tracy had turned the city into a warzone of wreckage and destruction. But as an eight-year-old, Margie and her siblings had no idea of the magnitude of the situation.
The night before Christmas Eve, Margie recalls that the beginning of the cyclone felt like any other tropical storm. But as the winds grew stronger and their mother urged them to wrap themselves in their bedsheets and flee the house, they knew that this was not an ordinary storm. Their neighbor's tree had fallen on their roof, and the roof was being torn off. In a state of panic and fear, the family raced across the road to seek refuge in the house of a naval officer.
As the winds howled and the house shook, the children were put in the bathtub with their bedspreads still over them to protect them from flying debris. Despite the chaos and destruction, Margie remembers feeling incredibly hot and uncomfortable. Meanwhile, the adults sat around drinking grog, trying to cope with the situation.
Cyclone Tracy unleashed its fury on Darwin, leaving behind a path of destruction that would take years to repair. With winds reaching 217km/h and measuring instruments failing, the storm caused 66 fatalities and countless injuries as buildings were torn apart. Margie and her family spent the entire night listening to the deafening roar of the cyclone and feeling the pressure of the storm pushing at the house.
At one point during the night, Margie's father left the house to help a woman who was clinging to her toilet bowl as the rest of her house was shredded. Despite being injured himself, he managed to rescue the woman and bring her to safety before returning to his family, covered in blood.
The morning of Christmas Day revealed the true extent of the devastation. As her father had said the night before, there was nothing left of the city they had known. Living in the northern suburbs, they had borne the full force of Cyclone Tracy. Margie saw that her neighbor's house was completely gone, leaving only floorboards behind. Even their own home had lost its roof, but the walls were still standing.
The aftermath of Cyclone Tracy was catastrophic, with 66 fatalities and over 145 serious injuries. The damage was estimated to be over $800 million, equivalent to over $7.5 billion today. Three days after the storm, Margie and her family were evacuated from the ravaged city and flown to Sydney Airport with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
But they were greeted with an outpouring of support and donations, including clothes and money. They spent the next six months with a relative in Goulburn while Margie's father, a builder, worked on repairing their home in Darwin. In the years that followed, Margie experienced three more cyclones, but none of them compared to the sheer terror and destruction of Cyclone Tracy.
Fifty years have passed since that fateful Christmas Day, but the memories of Cyclone Tracy still haunt Margie. She recalls the eerie silence on the bus as they were being evacuated, passing by streets where no houses were left standing. And the storm's impact continued to linger, as Margie witnessed the strain it put on her parents' marriage and the marriages of many others in the community.
Cyclone Tracy remains the deadliest storm ever to strike Australia, a reminder of the immense power of nature and the resilience of the human spirit. For Margie and many others who lived through it, it will always be a defining moment in their lives.
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