Portal:Australia/Featured article/Week 15, 2006



Cyclone Tracy was a tropical cyclone that devastated Darwin, Australia, from December 24 to December 25, 1974. It was recorded by The Age as being a "disaster of the first magnitude...without parallel in Australia's history." It killed 65 people and destroyed over 70 percent of Darwin's buildings, leaving over 20,000 people homeless. Most of Darwin's population was evacuated to Adelaide, Whyalla, Alice Springs and Sydney, and many never returned to Darwin. The town was subsequently rebuilt with newer materials and techniques. Cyclone Tracy was at least a Category 4 storm, although there is evidence to suggest that it had reached Category 5 when it reached Darwin. Cyclone Tracy, due to its severity, has entered into Australian popular culture in a way that no other meteorological event had before, or has since. Probably the most famous work that it has inspired is the song by Bill Cate, "Santa Never Made it into Darwin". Composed in 1974 to raise money for the relief and reconstruction effort, the song became so wide-known that in 1983 the Hoodoo Gurus released a song entitled "Tojo Never Made it to Darwin", inspired by Bill Cate's song and about the Japanese bombing of Darwin in World War II.