Rock and Tempest: Surviving Cyclone Tracy and its Aftermath

When Cyclone Tracy flattened Darwin on Christmas Day 1974, it was the worst natural disaster Australians had ever experienced. In the days after Tracy, the majority of Darwin’s population was evacuated interstate as the Navy’s Task Force arrived to clean up and rebuild.

Stationed in the city with the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service, Patricia Collins not only lived through Tracy but was part of the massive clean-up effort. The experience of living through a terrifying natural disaster is chillingly told as she recounts her own dark hours that Christmas, along with those of her contemporaries.

In this presentation, Patricia Collins will share first-person accounts of the terror and uncertainty as well as courage and survival. It is a fascinating and moving story.

About the speaker:

Patricia Collins was a member of the WRANS, the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service, based at HMAS Coonawarra in Darwin when Cyclone Tracy destroyed the city on Christmas Eve 1974. Patricia wasn’t evacuated but stayed and worked on clean-up duties for months. Patricia wrote the book Rock and Tempest in her 60s to record the achievements of her fellow Navy women and men at that time. Rock and Tempest, published by Hachette Australia in 2024, won the Anzac Memorial Trustees Military History Prize in the State Library of NSW History Awards in 2025.