Christmas Day 1974 is a date

indelibly etched into the minds of any Dowunderite old enough to remember it. It is the date on which a category four cyclone hit the top end of the country, almost destroyed a city, displaced many thousands and caused weeks of chaos and hardship.

Another, and equally powerful, cyclone is going through the area as I write this. There will be harm done but it will not be on anything like the same scale as before. Building regulations have changed and that will help a lot. Disaster planning has improved. Even more importantly communication has improved.  Even the most remote communities are likely to get some information. 

In the north there are still people who speak little or no English so the warnings will have been given in multiple local indigenous languages. The bigger problem will be to get people to heed the warnings and go to local shelters if their own homes are at particular risk. 

Christmas Day 1974 was my first close-distant encounter with a natural disaster that required a response. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. My parents, also called on to help, had no idea either. They were old enough to remember the war but did not see active service. Any other natural disaster had passed them by but this one was different. It was in our country. Yes, it was thousands of kilometres away and the communications coming through were patchy at first but it did not take long for organisations like the Red Cross, Anglicare and the Salvation Army to set to work. 

The Senior Cat was sent off to help organise accommodation. Mum was helping with food and clothing and other basic supplies. I was given a table as a desk and more paper work than I had ever seen before. Looking back I can only think that someone had made a mistake. I was in no way qualified to do what I did. I was taking down often intimate details about people and their families so they could get the assistance they urgently needed. I can still hear the scream of the woman wearing nothing but shorts and a sleeveless top that this was all she had in the world. She had no ID of any sort and no idea if the rest of her family had survived. To this day I am thankful I was not the person who had to help her. 

Late yesterday afternoon someone who has family up in that area asked me, "Is that what started you on your job?" I had to say that no, it was not. The first communication board for that purpose came some years later - but perhaps the earlier experience prepared me just a little? I do not know.

What I do know is that I am fortunate to live in a country where things can happen quickly if there is a need for it. I also know it is when people do not heed warnings that they are more likely to find themselves in trouble. Now I am hoping people in the cyclone area have heeded the warnings they were given.