Tracy Rocks Ten Ton Bus

by Minna Chand
(Darwin)

This is just a very brief experience of cyclone Tracy inside a bus that weighed 10 tons, with my family & friends. My family moved to Darwin from Canberra 2 weeks before this cyclone. Actually we had only migrated to Australia from Finland about 6 months before this. If anyone wants to know about a cyclone like this one it was beyond explanation.

We had experienced snowstorms in Finland, and minus 50 degrees in cold, but this cyclone was different. anyway the decision to go in to the bus was mine, and my parents for some reason believed and listened to me. It was either the bus or the house with 3 bedrooms in it. There was no way i would go in to that house. Our caravan was tied up with garden hoses between two other 10-ton buses at Mindil Beach Caravan Park where we actually lived.

Anyway when it was dark in the night the winds actually got to the point where the bus started to sway slowly at first from side to side, then all off a sudden the winds got even stronger and the roof from the house landed on top of the bus, now this was scary, the top deck of the bus was nearly flat and all the windows had blasted out of existence.
We were on the bottom floor on our knees, water coming right in from the top. Then the winds nearly tipped the bus over, the reason it didn't was because there was a water pipe, which was somehow holding it just there in a slant only about 3 foot from the ground. Then it started again, slowly picking the bus up to standing position, and it actually started rocking from side to side. I was beyond crying, we were actually holding on to our lives. The fear was beyond imagination. This went through the night.

In the morning, we went outside, it was all-flat, everything was flat, water & medications debris floating around. anyway we went to the caravan park at mindil beach, it was horrific to see 30ft caravans upside down, trees pulled out of their roots from the ground. If any one reads this who actually had been living in that caravan park would agree that the scene was too much to explain. The Travelodge pool had cars inside it. It was just too much. Anyone who was in cyclone Tracy would have very bad memories of it & would not enjoy talking about it too much.

Till today I am a bit scared when a massive thunder storm happens in Darwin.....................

by Minna Chand