However, on 24 December 1974, the local television and radio stations warned of a cyclone, which the weather men had named Tracy, moving rapidly nearer Darwin.

    But it was Christmas Eve. The people of Darwin did not want to think about cyclones when they were only a few hours away from Christmas Day, with various preparations still to make. There were presents to get ready for the children and food to prepare for the family meal the next day.

    The frequent warnings on the radio did not go unnoticed. There were a few nervous people considering anxiously whether to drive off in their cars to escape the danger. But, as usual, everyone hoped that the storm would blow away.

    At two minutes before midnight, the radio gave out a short message. There seemed little doubt that Cyclone Tracy was moving towards Darwin.

    The first report of the cyclone's position was given at 9.40 p.m. Tracy was then seventy-three kilometers away, traveling east-south-east at six kilometers an hour. An hour later, it was sixty-four kilometers away, still moving at the same speed.

    In spite of the continued cyclone warnings, the people of Darwin went to bed well before midnight that night. They were tired from all the last-minute shopping and the excitement of Christmas.

    There were some, however, who stayed up much later, at Christmas Eve parties. Returning in the early hours of Christmas morning, they suddenly understood for the first time that the cyclone was going to hit Darwin. There was a very strong wind and the rain was coming down so hard, it hurt to be out in the open.

    Those who had gone to bed gave up trying to sleep. The noise from the wind seemed to fill every room. Lights were on all over the city. Families turned on their radios to hear the latest news about the advancing cyclone. Many of them moved into their bathrooms because they were told that was the safest place.

    Although Darwin lies in the recognized cyclone "belt", the houses in the city were not built to stand up against such fierce winds. Many of them in the city were made of wood, with iron sheets for roofs. Other towns in Australia, within the same cyclone belt, had prepared a new building act.

    But Darwin did not follow their example. So the houses were very weak. Most of them were raised up on "legs" to provide extra coolness in the hot weather. The iron roofs were just nailed down instead of being firmly fixed with what Australian builders call "cyclone bolts."

    In spite of the increasing danger from Cyclone Tracy, now only thirty kilometers away, the local people were actually making jokes about it. They even made up songs about the cyclone that never reached Darwin.

    Little did they know that when Tracy arrived, not even the houses built with bricks would remain standing.

    For the boat out at sea the bad dream began at about midnight. Bob Hedditch had taken his fishing boat, the seventy-three foot Anson, out to sea at about 7.30 p.m. on Christmas Eve. There were two other men on board.

    "By 2 a.m., we had no steering, no lights, and only the main engine to keep us moving into the eye of cyclone," said Bob. The "eye" is the calm center of a cyclone, inside a ring of storm.

    It had taken just four hours for Cyclone Tray to turn Darwin into a huge pile of rubbish. There was not a single roof left on any of the buildings and the people of Darwin were standing outside their ruined homes like lost children.

    John Auld lived with his wife Helen and their 22-month-old-son Glenn, in Darwin, but until Cyclone Tracy arrived they did not know their neighbors very well. There was the Firth family across the road and the Dabovitch couple next door. The cyclone was to bring them all together.

    John Auld was working on night duty at Darwin airport. He was very busy because they were waiting for a British Airways plane on a flight to Sydney, stopping off at Darwin.

    Helen Auld, frightened by the screaming wind, tried to telephone her husband but all the lines were down. So she took the baby, who was asleep, into the bathroom and sat on the floor.

    Before Cyclone Tracy reached Darwin, its "eye" was very large. But now suddenly it began to get smaller and smaller. This caused the speed of the winds to increase even further around the eye.

    Within minutes people were running screaming into the dark streets. Houses were torn from the ground and thrown several yards in all directions.

    Tall office buildings and hotels fell to the ground. Cars parked in the street were blown over and over until every bit of metal was bent or scratched. At Darwin's railway station, trains were thrown into the air as if they were toys. The rails were torn up from the ground and bent into different shapes. All the time the cyclone was screaming and moaning and roaring.

    At the airport, John Auld watched in horror as fifty planes were destroyed. Some of them were blown for hundreds of yards. John looked at his watch. It was 4 a.m. He was desperately worried about Helen and the baby. When he felt that there was nothing more he could do at the airport, he ran to his car. Luckily it was under cover and was not damaged.

    He drove the six kilometers to his home as fast as he could but it was an almost impossible journey. All the roads were covered in overturned cars, doors, roofs, glass and furniture.

    When he reached the street where he lived, his house had disappeared and there was no sign of his family.

    But Peter Firth from across the road had rescued Helen and the baby. Helen had stayed in the bathroom holding her child closely to her. When the roof flew off, she thought she was going to die and prayed that her husband John would come back from the airport.

    As the full anger of Cyclone Tracy began to die down, Peter Firth struggled out of his ruined house and forced open the front door of the Auld's home. He found Helen and Glenn in a corner of the bathroom, the only room in the house, which was not destroyed. He led them to the safety of the storm cellar under his house. The Dabovitches joined them later. They had spent three hours hiding under the concrete steps in the front of their house, after their home had flown away into the night.

    John Auld searched everywhere for his family, until he found them in the Firths’ cellar. Many of the people of Darwin escaped by hiding in cellars that night.

    One family stayed alive by lying under a bed all night as the cyclone tore down their house piece by piece.

    One man spent the whole night supporting the bathroom ceiling with his shoulders to protect his family.

    Another family with two children hid in a neighbor's shed which somehow managed to stay on the ground.

    The mother, Mrs. Vivianne Buffery, described the scene at the height of the storm.

    "Everything was flying through the air," she said, "Washing machines, fridges, television sets, ladders, fences."

    When Cyclone Tracy finally left Darwin, there was a strange silence throughout the city. Everyone waited, expecting the storm to turn round and come back again to make sure that all the buildings were knocked to the ground. 

    But when the people at last appeared from their hiding places at dawn, they could see that the cyclone had done a very thorough job! Nothing was left standing for as far as the eye could see. Quite simply, the cyclone had picked up the city of Darw - in, shaken it, and then dropped it to the ground like an unwanted toy. 

    It took a long time to discover how many people had died in the cyclone. But after two weeks, the final figure was only forty-eight, including thirteen children under the age of twelve. More than sixty were injured, many of them seriously. 

    The city was so badly hit that it was decided to bring in bulldozers to knock down whatever was left standing. The only thing to do was start from the beginning and rebuild the whole city.

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