A MIRACLE, BY GEORGE!

CYCLONE George roared into the Pilbara region of Western Australia in early March, 2007, cutting a swathe of destruction and leaving three people dead. It was the State's worst cyclone in 30 years. Here, South Hedland's Black Rock Tourist caravan park manager Richard Carruth relives the horror of the night George struck.

AS I stand amidst a wasteland of broken and uprooted trees, with chainsaw in hand and tears in my eyes, I find myself remembering the frustration of that Thursday.

Everybody seemed to know better than me ... my warnings and advice went unheeded. I was ridiculed by more than just a few, and the trees I loved and cared for like the five-year-old babies they were, still stood upright and proud.

Growing up in Exmouth, I have weathered a few cyclones and seen the damage they can do to a caravan park, namely The Lighthouse, where I spent the best years of my childhood. Severe Category 4 cyclone Vance wiped out the park and obliterated Exmouth township. The destruction was on a vast scale compared to George.

When George peaked after midnight I was honestly terrified for the first time in my life, and I am not ashamed to admit that I spent a good portion of the night huddled in my swag under a mattress in the central hallway, waiting and dreading the moment when the roof would succumb to the ferocity of the wind.

The noise was an indescribable force that tore at my sanity, and I began to feel physically ill as debris peppered the walls of the house like bullets, tearing long gashes in colourbond steel sheeting and shattering double -glazed security windows behind steel mesh.

All I could think of was those poor caravans, so flimsy and vulnerable out there, being torn apart and flung against my house. Also the people I felt a certain responsibility for losing everything, not to mention the ones I was sure had stayed in their vans despite me begging them to go to an evacuation centre or friend's house and ride it out.

In the morning I was dreading looking outside and seeing the devastation and could not believe my eyes ... they had all survived intact, structurally speaking. Most had windows blown out or roof vents torn off and severe water damage to the inside. Several had been dragged off their sites and tipped backwards but the straps and anchors had held.

At 7am on Friday the wind was still blowing over 120kph but people had started moving around. Several people became stuck in the main ablution block and had been imprisoned by the air pressure holding the doors shut. It  had been a terrible experience for them ... they emerged white and shaken.

Four couples had intended to leave but were caught by the rapid approach of the storm's leading edge. They spent the night either in the toilet block or ensuites attached to their sites. It was a miracle nobody was hurt. Even police were expecting to have to stop looters and pull bodies from the devastated vans. But instead, they drove around the relatively clear roadways with their mouths open in astonishment.

Of course, as with any large storm like that, damage was everywhere but luckily relatively minor.

Strange things did continue to appear throughout the day, like finding a fridge door and a brick in the pool and a cupboard against the fence at the far end of the park. We still have no idea where it came from.

Even two weeks after the storm I was still finding things that amazed me. Like the large aluminium pot I use to cook crabs. Left outside in the rush, it was still sitting unmoved in the backyard where I had left it, while a 20 litre drum full of sump oil that had been sitting next to it was missing ... presumed never to be seen again. I am sure that I will find things for many months to come as I slowly haul my way over the mountain of work.

And while the tenants have now gone back to their normal lives, I face the ever more saddening task of savagely cutting back to stumps and righting, trying to save the 97 trees that relented to the force of George's persuasion and lay down like dominoes all over the park.

But the thought that torments me most, the one going round in my head all day, is: should I rope off the one remaining shady tree and sell tickets to the fights? For the cheery winter caravanners will come rolling into town in a few scant weeks, with last year's picture of the park in their mind. And they will all ask for nice shady sites!

I am still amazed by the absolute blind faith which people put in the Bureau of Meteorology's forecasting that terrible day, and the certainty with which they claimed the ability to predict the unpredictable. This is why I now offer you my definitive guide to predicting cyclones in the hope it may serve you in good stead, as it has served me so many years.

When it comes to predicting cyclones in Australia, there are only three things that can be absolutely guaranteed and which the Bureau should not get wrong, but somehow they still manage it.

Rule 1: There will be wind!

Rule 2: There will certainly be rain!

Rule 3: The cyclone will, eventually, move in a southerly direction!

So, at the end of the day, you can take solace in the knowledge that if a cyclone is to the north and you follow those simple rules, you can with reasonable certainty say the cyclone will move in your direction. And that, for me, is enough to warrant getting well prepared.

Five days before George crossed the coast 25km east of South Hedland, I had been making preparations for a direct hit. Using the above 1, 2, 3 guarantee, I had predicted the correct path of George while meteorologists still had it tracking and dissipating a thousand kilometres west of Exmouth. But all smugness aside, it is a miracle that any caravans at Black Rock Tourist Park survived.

BACK TO CARAVANNING NEWS

April 2007