00:00Today in Darwin, survivors have gathered for the 50th anniversary of Cyclone Tracey.
00:08Today is a significant day and one with lots of memories to share.
00:13The organiser of this event was Richard Questwick and today I want to speak with you just about
00:18what this means for survivors.
00:20Can you tell me, I guess, what the significance is of having an event like this for the survivors
00:26of Cyclone Tracey?
00:27Well, this is the 50th anniversary, as you said, but it's the first fully dedicated memorial
00:37to Cyclone Tracey.
00:39There have been lots of other bits and pieces around that are reminders of Cyclone Tracey
00:45but this is a memorial that's designed specifically for Cyclone Tracey and is for survivors but
00:55also for the wider community because essentially it's a memorial for the people but dedicated
01:04to survivors and to those who lost their lives.
01:07And today we saw the unveiling of these beautiful Frangipani monuments.
01:12Can you tell me why it was the Frangipani and what is on those monuments?
01:18Well, prior to the cyclone the Frangipani trees were ubiquitous in Darwin.
01:24Nearly every home had one in the yard, they were in the streets, they were everywhere.
01:30And the choice of the Frangipani flower reflects the fact that after the cyclone that flowers
01:36were strewn from one end of the city to the other and it's the fallen Frangipanis that
01:43are evoked here.
01:45The shelter is evocative of corrugated iron and bent brokenness and we chose the Frangipanis
01:56because of their ubiquitousness, because you can break off a branch of Frangipani, stick
02:03it in the ground and it will grow.
02:06They are a resilient tree and we mark them as resilient, representing the resilience
02:12of the Darwin community.
02:14Absolutely, and something that really touched me was seeing survivors who had lost loved
02:19ones during Cyclone Tracy look for their family members on the Frangipanis and the names that
02:25were shown there.
02:27Do you think a memorial like this and a monument like that helps with healing after what was
02:33probably quite a traumatic event?
02:35I think so.
02:37We hope the entire 50th commemorations that we've organised, the welcome event, the storytelling
02:44event and this unveiling today will be part of a healing process for people who haven't
02:50healed.
02:51There are not many of them but a lot who still carry the trauma.
02:58Well, this is, we hope, a day of closure for them and the response has been tremendous.
03:09We chose to have individual plaques for the names of those who died rather than just your
03:15standard listing of names so we've grouped the people who died at sea together and the
03:23family groups and I think it's a really nice way to commemorate those who died.
03:31Thank you Richard.
03:32Thank you Grace.
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