C Y C L O N E    L A M

When you live in the path of possible cyclones you soon learn about the BOM site and it's cyclone tracking maps - and if a cyclone is developing in the gulf next to where you live you soon learn to check it obsessively to see what kind of trouble you might be in ...

Initially Cyclone Lam looked like it was going to swing below us but on Tuesday - as I checked the three hourly updates - it began to look more ominous ...  by Tuesday afternoon we feared the worse - a Category 4 Cyclone was expected to hit Yirrkala and Nhulunbuy on the nose ...

We packed out things and prepared ourselves, school got cancelled and we waited for the updates as they came in, the forecast changed and Lam started to go above us but 5am Wed morning the update was specific -  get to your cyclone safe shelter  N O W ... 

So we went to Katrina's house (brick) and along with 16 others bunked down waiting for the destructive winds to hit and began checking BOM hourly ... it was a long day -  we went for a drive, we saw people surfing in the waves off the boat ramp, we went to Shady Beach and felt the wind and saw the huge surf crashing up but generally it was T O T A L L Y   U N E V E N T F U L and by 4pm we were all a bit restless and bored (its a funny thing but after awhile you just want the bloody cyclone to come and get the show on the road)

 But by then of course, the cyclone had shifted paths again and was headed directly to poor Elcho Island and Milingimbi and Ramingining ...

 And there on Thursday morning it blew into those communities with the full brunt of a Category 4 and continued inland as a Category 3 until , at last, it went to a 1 and now a Low ... and those poor small towns are now facing mammoth tasks of cleaning up and re building and getting power on and water on and all those things that I feel extremely fortunate not to have to deal with ... its a bittersweet relief - for I feel so sorry for them .. but our family is safe, our house, our community, the art centre and we are very very lucky.

see ya later  L A M  !!