Blown Away

Well, it finally happened. After countless false warnings, a category 3 cyclone whipped along the coastline, passing very close to Karratha. The first we knew that it might be a big one was Tuesday evening – it hit Broome, just over 800km north of Karratha, but at that point was only a tropical low, windy and rainy but nothing stronger than a gale in the UK. The following morning brought with it a blue alert and then a yellow and The Husband was sent home at 1pm after ensuring all was tied down and secured on site. After all that excitement came rather an anti-climax of an afternoon. It rained on and off but not heavily and as we went to bed that night we both wondered what the fuss was about.


However, at 2am we were rudely awoken by the deafening howl of the wind, the thunderous clatter of heavy rain pounding the roof and being blown in sheets against the windows. This was what they were preparing us for, and it is all the more frightening when it begins in the middle of the night. All was dark and we couldn’t see the extent of the rain and the wind, only hear it and imagine the damage it might be causing. Our back fence is rusting away at its foundations and, despite informing the agents about it months ago, nothing has been done about it. “We’re still getting quotes,” was the response every time we queried them about it. It has already sagged quite significantly in the direction of the house and I had visions of it being torn from the ground and hurtling towards the glass patio doors. I also had an irrational fear that we might be hit by a tsunami, a fear for which when expressed I was laughed at. Apparently it’s not possible here but in my opinion the weather can never be relied upon to do what’s expected and anything can happen. Just ask the residents of Toowoomba, the small Queensland town that was destroyed by a freakish inland tsunami. I had trouble falling back to sleep, not only because of the wall of noise that was battering the house but because, deep down, I was pretty scared.

We woke to relative calm – none of the ear-splitting howling and drumming rain of 2am. Expecting to be going to work, The Husband got up but soon received a text telling him that we were still on red alert. He wasn’t going anywhere so promptly fell back into bed for another couple of hours kip. It seemed odd at 7.30am that he still couldn’t go anywhere as there was no rain, no wind and it was cloudy but fairly bright. Not that he was going to complain about not having to don his flouro work gear and steel-capped boots and trudge off to site. So of course he proceeded to get in my way, TV blaring, as I tried to work.

Half an hour later we realised why we were still on red alert. The room darkened within seconds to such an extent that we had to switch on the lights. It was like someone was pulling a black cloak over the sky. Then the wind kicked up, furiously shaking our fence which was desperately straining to remain in the ground, and making the trees perform a voodoo dance. Last to make an entrance was the rain but it was saving itself for the grandest entrance of all, ensuring it got full attention. It hammered down on the tin roof, thrashed against the windows, and started a pond in the already saturated garden. A tiny bird sheltered from the elements on the patio, under the roof, sitting with its head pulled in and its feathers ruffed up to try and make itself as small as possible as the cyclone unleashed its fury around it.

It is now 10am and the sky has brightened, the rain stopped and the wind no more than a gusty coastal breeze. The Husband is pacing up and down, unable to simply relax and enjoy the fact that he is not at work. He’s calling the company emergency information line every five minutes, checking whether the status has changed and he should be preparing to go to work. If I didn’t have to work I’d be crashed out on the sofa with a good book or watching the Australian Open, not wandering about the house, looking out the windows, sighing and distracting my wife who is trying to create masterpieces! Now more than ever I am praying that the cyclone moves on so that work can resume as normal.