More than 400 people were evacuated from the remote community of Warruwi on Monday as tropical cyclone Nathan strengthened off the Northern Territory coast and threatened to hit Goulburn Island as a category three.
The cyclone, which began over a week ago off the far-north Queensland coast, continued to move west at a slow pace, intensifying over the warm waters of the Arafura Sea. It was expected to reach category three on Monday night and the latest tracking data showed “pretty much a direct hit” on Goulburn Island, the director of NT emergency services, Andrew Warton told media.
“A category three tropical cyclone is going to pack winds between 165km/h and 224km/h. That can do damage to roofs ... trees and powerlines and some of the damage we’ve already seen.”
There are no structures in Warruwi which meet cyclone code, which prompted authorities to declare a state of emergency late on Sunday night and order an evacuation.
It was the second evacuation in less than a month for the Warruwi residents, and many of them were tired, having woken before 4am when the community’s alarm went off and they were ordered to the recreation hall.
From Warruwi’s tiny airstrip, a combination of 12 light aircraft belonging to police, emergency services and private operators began ferrying the community with a population of about 420 people to Darwin, an hour away to the west.
Miriam Kris was put on the first flight out, organised by the local aged-care workers. Kris and her fellow passengers then travelled the familiar route to the Darwin showground pavilion, repurposed as an evacuation centre and run by the Red Cross and NT government agencies and local organisations, just as it had been for cyclone Lam.
Hundreds of mattresses were spread out on the floor of one hall, while in another people queued for a meal served up by volunteers and emergency services. Dozens of kids ran around the hall and outside on the oval. Older family members spoke of the frustration of evacuating again, and the disruption it caused for the kids, but were pragmatic about it. One Darwin-based man said it was at least nice to have all his family in town at one time.
Relma Luta met her aunt Miriam at the pavilion on Monday morning. Luta and her family had flown to the mainland on Tuesday for a funeral and were due to return late last week, before the cyclone changed their plans.
“So I stayed here and went to the shelter. We came straight away when we heard [my aunt] was already here … We came in and registered the family,” Luta told Guardian Australia.
Luta was worried about her house and outdoor furniture which had not been put away.
“Yeah ‘cause we didn’t pack. We just came. We’d just finished renovating the house and we’d just moved in,” she said.
Delilah Ngarlingarli, 19, was also worried, despite already having gone through the ordeal with Lam.
“This time it’s going to be a bit closer and of course we left pets back home,” she said. “Which is a bit devastating because we couldn’t bring them on the plane.”
Ngarlingarli flew in late on Monday morning. The winds had started to pick up and the ride was a little bumpy but cleared as they approached Darwin.
By 430pm all 427 people had been transported from Warruwi on 51 flights.
“The community is cooperating, they’re listening to the messages, and we’re on target to achieve the objective and that is to get everybody off that island before tropical cyclone Nathan approaches,” Warton earlier told media at the evacuation centre.
The evacuation was a huge logistical operation, involving 12 aircraft doing numerous trips between Warruwi and Darwin, as well as housing and feeding the 420 residents, but the full cost of it was not known.
“If the evacuation is deemed necessary and appropriate, as it was last time, as it is this time, there’s no price you can put on the human lives of 420 people of a remote Indigenous island,” said Warton.
Cyclone Nathan was continuing to track along the northern Top End coastline on Monday, gathering strength over the warm waters, and expected to bring destructive winds with gusts of up to 195km/h between Goulburn Island and Maningrida on Tuesday morning. A storm tide was also predicted for that area.
On Monday afternoon the region from Cape Don to Elcho Island was subject to a cyclone warning and communities from Cape Hotham to Gunbalanya were on cyclone watch.
Gales gusting up to 120 km/h continued to batter Elcho Island after the cyclone passed over on Sunday night. Warton said assessments were still in the initial survey stage but it appeared there was no significant damage. There were no reports of injuries and all communities in the area had made contact with authorities.
“It was pretty horrible – category two, strong winds – but generally, overall, it went really well, people stayed in the shelters, we had police in the shelters,” Sergeant Ian Hamblyn of the Galiwin’ku police told Guardian Australia.
“That helped [mitigate] any problems we had with the previous cyclone when people wanted to leave. I’ve just done a drive round the community and it seems like there’s not too much damage,” he said.
Galiwin’ku sustained serious damage in cyclone Lam, with 212 people made homeless. For the past four weeks they had been living in emergency shelters – a tent city – set up on the Galiwin’ku football oval. Ahead of Nathan’s approach the tents were dismantled on Saturday and packed away, and the people moved to an evacuation centre.
It is not yet known whether this second cyclone will extend the time people have to remain in the emergency tents.
Nhulunbuy also escaped serious damage after being swiped by the category-two cyclone, despite some inundation as the storm hit at high tide, and a number of boats which tore free from moorings and broke against the shore.
By late Monday the cyclone had not deviated significantly from its projected path, which had it crossing land as a category three on Tuesday and tracking south-west towards Jabiru as a category one before weakening to a tropical low.
Northern Territory chief minister Adam Giles said his thoughts were with people affected by the cyclones, and urged all Territorians in the region – including residents of Darwin – to keep an eye on weather reports and put away loose objects and furniture as a precaution.
