On Christmas Eve in 1971, while the country was wrapping presents to put under the tree, broadcaster Allan Porter clocked on for a day of work that would shape the rest of his life.
Cyclone Althea had formed off the coast of Townsville in North Queensland days earlier and winds were picking up as Porter headed to the ABC studios at 5am to begin emergency broadcast coverage.
That day the cyclone would go on to hit the Townsville coast as a category three storm, causing $50 million ($559m today) in damage across the region and leaving three people dead.
Porter had moved to Townsville about two years earlier to take up a job as journalist, but was yet to experience an intense storm.
“We were all there in the building,” he said.
“It was actually quite frightening, because it was the first cyclone that did any damage.
“There had been so many cyclones that had wandered down the coast, but they always disappeared.
“But Cyclone Althea … did the damage.”
With emergency sirens blaring and wind howling, Porter was eager to catch a glimpse of the storm.
“We just had to sneak a peek and had a look at Wickham Street outside from the window,” he said.
By 8:15am power had been cut, and Porter and the team relayed emergency information by phone to Brisbane.
Eye passes leaving scenes of chaos
After the weather had cleared, Porter jumped on his motorcycle armed with a camera to survey the damage.
It was worse than Porter had expected.
Nearly 200 Townsville homes lost their roofs; on nearby Magnetic Island around 90 per cent of buildings were destroyed.
“There were solid built areas that were just gouged and ruined,” he said.
Porter said it was the 3-metre ocean swell that devastated Townsville’s iconic waterfront strip, The Strand, and Cape Pallarenda, north of the city, that most shocked him.
Pallarenda, which was established in 1915 to quarantine passengers on incoming international ships, was also where Porter lived.
“Not only was it thought to have been much closer to the centre of the cyclone when it crossed the coast, but it was also prone to wind funnelling across Cleveland Bay,” he said.
While Porter had been in the ABC newsroom, the roof had blown off his own home.
Townsville spends Christmas digging deep
Among the rubble, people still found something to celebrate.
“I remember meeting someone who said they’d just had a marvellous barbecue,” Porter said.
“A cold store somewhere in the west of Townsville had low power and everything in it had to find a home, and those who were close by suddenly found themselves with interesting things to put on the spit.”
The wait for repairs was long, so Townsville settled down under tarpaulins and turned on generators as it waited a year for repairs.
A turning point
Cyclone Althea sparked an overhaul of the region’s building standards, but industry experts say they are continually learning.
Three years after Althea hit, Cyclone Tracey prompted changes to building regulations and, in 1977, a cyclone research centre in Townsville opened.
James Cook University Cyclone Testing Station engineer David Henderson says he spends his days scientifically pulling houses apart
Dr Henderson uses a 22-metre-long wind tunnel with a fan stretching 2 metres in diameter to recreate cyclonic pressure on miniature structures.
“So, you can imagine if we need that 2-metre fan just for a [small] model, you can imagine how big the fan would have to be if we were doing a full-sized house,” he said.
Dr Henderson said at the time of Althea, roofs which were just nailed together; they are now connected via approved bolts and straps adjoined to homes’ foundations.
Disaster studies coordinator Yetta Gurtner said preparedness was also about people’s mindsets.
“There’s a lot more information out there; there’s almost too much information, so where the public to get credible information is particularly problematic,” she said.
Dr Gurtner noted Townsville’s transient population meant many people had never experienced a cyclone.
“Cyclone Althea was 50 years ago; public memory is limited in that context,” she said.
Cyclone Seroja made landfall last year, only 250 metres north of Perth, damaging 70 per cent of buildings in the towns of Kalbarri and Northampton.
Master Builders Queensland manager Tony Mitchell said building standards were continually changing.
While buildings north of Bundaberg, in central Queensland, were currently built to withstand cyclone conditions, Mr Mitchell said there was talk those standards could be extended south to the New South Wales border.
Weather patterns brings ideal conditions for storms
Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Laura Boekel said the current La Niña weather pattern meant more cyclones were likely for north Queensland.
“The average for the coral sea is four tropical cyclones in the sea with at least one of those crossing the coast (annually),” she said.
In the 50 years since Althea hit, Ms Boekel said tools of the trade meant it was now much easier to track a storm’s path.
“Because cyclones can form so far out in the ocean, we use a lot of satellite imagery,” she said.
“It’s also the frequency, we get a new satellite image every 10 minutes now, which never would have happened a decade ago.”
For Porter, the expedience of Althea has followed him through a career stretching decades.
“Many of us had our grounding in broadcast in Townsville,” he said.
“There’s a brotherhood of us who get together and discuss these things.”
