During the Christmas-New Year in Darwin there was much talk about cyclones . The Northern Territory News ran a front page story marking the 44th anniversary of Cyclone Tracy . In the CBD mall the special tile display depicting the course of Cyclone Tracy was showered with blossoms, not torrential rain , from a nearby tree .
By Peter Simon
Out at the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery there is a Cyclone Tracy section , complete with chilling sound effects of the night that tore the city apart in 1974. There I spotted in a showcase number eight in the government newsletters which I compiled after the cyclone , handed out at various parts of the city where meals were provided for those who had not fled overland or been evacuated by plane . It reported the population was just 11,119 .
A newspaper report of the cyclone on display( below) was written by a friend , the late Jim"Flasher" Oram .One of the early southern reporters to arrive from Sydney after the disaster, he wore a suit , quickly shed his coat and cut off the trousers at the knees to handle the heat .
During last month when there were frequent reports about the likely course of a cyclone in the Gulf of Carpentaria, my attention was drawn to a line of ants, about three metres long, carrying eggs from a nearby flower bed , which disappeared up inside a garden elephant. As there had been a short shower overnight, was this an indication that a monsoonal torrent , perhaps a cyclone, was on the way ? Several lizards were later seen in and around the elephant, presumably feasting on the eggs.
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During an electrical storm there were 70,000 lightning strikes, causing some refrigerators and deep freezers to turn off , with disastrous , smelly results .
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