Fifty years after Cyclone Tracy, Ey family remembers being in eye of ...

Dense monsoonal clouds hung low over Darwin Harbour and dumped their contents throughout the overcast afternoon of Christmas Eve 1974.

Terry Ey had arrived in the Top End from South Australia a few weeks earlier and was finishing his first shift as a new police officer, while his wife Rosemary readied the turkey for Christmas Day.

"It was a very ordinary day," Mr Ey remembers.

"A few weeks prior, there had been warnings about a cyclone that failed to materialise and so I think there was a bit of complacency about the warnings that were coming through about Cyclone Tracy."

Perfect storm hit amid Christmas festivities

Northern Australia is no stranger to cyclones. However, Cyclone Tracy, which hit Darwin in the early hours of Christmas Day 1974, was among the most destructive recorded in Australia.

Wind gusts reached 217kph before the anemometer was destroyed, and almost 2 metres of rain fell before the pluviometer, too, was wrecked.

Terry and Rosemary Ey's home was destroyed during Cyclone Tracy in 1974. (Supplied: Ey family)

Records of casualties and deaths vary, but according to reports, 66 people died in the disaster and a further 145 were seriously injured.

In the wake of the cyclone, Darwin's population was reduced to little more than 10,000 after more than 36,000 residents were evacuated.

City's houses never stood a chance

Fifty years on, the Eys vividly recall the lead up, landfall and aftermath of one of Australia's worst natural disasters.

"We did listen to the warnings, but we were a young, pretty relaxed community and our minds were set on Christmas," Mrs Ey said.

"Coming from South East South Australia, it was all a bit new to us … we were told to fill our bath up with water … but during the storm the bath blew away.

"Our personal effects had only arrived the week of the cyclone, so nothing was insured and of course we lost everything," she recalled.

Cyclone Tracy flattened more than 80 per cent of Darwin's homes. (Supplied: Ey family)

As evening arrived, winds began to pick up, lightning and thunder gathered pace, and the couple took cover in the lounge room with daughters Stephanie, 2, and Andrea, just five months.

"The front of our two-level house was entirely glass and it exploded, then the suction within the house was just incredible. We were dragged to the floor," Mrs Ey said.

"I happened to be standing next to the baby's bassinet and I took that with me and we were pinned to the floor. Then the roof came off and the front verandah came down."

As the cyclone lashed the city, houses proved incapable of protecting inhabitants from the onslaught. 

In time, some good would come of the carnage by way of vastly improved building standards that would apply across the entire country.

These included requirements that buildings be clad to protect them against flying debris, and that their roofs be tied to the foundations.

The Eys spent the entire night on the floor of their house while it was torn to pieces around them.

"We managed to find a little bit of shelter," Mrs Ey said.

But with the collapse of the house's verandah and surrounding structure, she had to face the unthinkable.

"I said to Terry, 'I've got Andrea, but Stephanie's dead' — you just accept it in circumstances like that," she said.

"But in some miracle, he'd seen the verandah collapse and had somehow managed to lift it off her and get her out."

Mrs Ey recalled the eerie quiet as the eye of the cyclone arrived and passed, followed by a second front as the other side arrived and wreaked havoc.

Devastated in 1974, Darwin now stands as a modern, resilient city rebuilt not just to recover but to withstand the worst. (Supplied: Ey family)

According to some reports, the second front was worse than the first, as it hurled debris from the first front back across the flattened communities.

"When daylight finally came, we looked out across what was our backyard and it was unbelievable," Mr Ey said.

Morning sheds light on scale of destruction

Mr Ey, still in his police uniform, set out to check on the local home for Aboriginal children down the road and assess the welfare of neighbours.

"I found the turkey in the deep freeze a couple of blocks away," he laughed.

"I carried it home, but tripped on some rubble and dropped it into the mud. That was the end of Christmas lunch."

News of the disaster took hours to reach the rest of the country, after much radio and communication infrastructure was destroyed. 

But on Christmas morning, the rest of Australia began to learn of the devastation that had ravaged Darwin and its people.

Mrs Ey and her children were among dozens of families taken to the Casuarina police station, where they were evacuated to Mount Isa on Boxing Day, and later, back to family in Adelaide.

"The women that came on board that flight to help us were amazing," Mrs Ey said.

"Fresh food, clothes for the kids."

Territorians gather to remember

Fifty years after the cyclone, Darwin is a vastly different city, but many people will gather to remember the event that is forever etched into its history.

Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis said a commemorative event will be held to "reflect on Cyclone Tracy's impact on our past, present and future".

"Cyclone Tracy will always be a part of the Territory's story and 50 years on we commemorate the devastating impact it had on the lives of Territorians.

"The resilience of Territorians is often linked to the determination of its people to rebuild."

Mrs Ey and the children eventually returned to Darwin, in April the following year.

"Initially when I left, I said, 'I'm never going back to that place again'," she said.

"But it gets you, the Top End. We all just banded together and rebuilt."

The couple, now retired back in Coonawarra in South Australia's South East, say the 50-year anniversary brings mixed emotions.

"It gave us a different perspective on life," Mrs Ey said.

"You realise how fragile your life is."

"You just accept that in circumstances like that, this could be it."