While Darwin experienced the outer edge of Severe Tropical Cyclone Fina at the weekend, the eye of the storm came much closer to the Tiwi Islands.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Wurrumiyanga residents described the intensity of the category three system.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The ABC flew over to the Tiwi Islands on Monday to see how the remote community handled the weekend’s wild weather. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n
“It was like a wooing sound and a whistle,” Tiwi Islands deputy mayor Mary Dunn said.<\/p>\n
“It was pretty terrifying for some people.”<\/p>\n
John Pilakui, a Wurrumiyanga local, said he had been “really scared”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
John Pilakui says the cyclone was scary for many locals, particularly for children and the elderly. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n
“The elderly people, kids as well \u2014 horrible,” he said.<\/p>\n
As Cyclone Fina tracked south-west, it brushed the southern tip of Melville Island.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Severe Tropical Cyclone Fina tracked past the Tiwi Islands as a category three system, as shown in this map from Saturday afternoon. (Supplied: BOM)<\/p>\n
Wurrumiyanga, on Bathurst Island, was the closest town to the eye of the cyclone.<\/p>\n
Benita Ullungura, another Wurrumiyanga resident, said it was the worst storm she had experienced.<\/p>\n
“It was really windy and strong \u2014 the whole town was shaking,” she said.<\/p>\n
Several properties were damaged as a result, with trees falling on roofs and fences.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Benita Ullungura says Severe Tropical Cyclone Fina was the worst storm she has ever experienced. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n
Member for Lingiari Marion Scrymgour returned home on Monday to find her old house had been badly damaged.<\/p>\n
“Planting this tree, I didn’t realise many years later what damage would happen,” she said.<\/p>\n
NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro also visited Wurrumiyanga and spoke to locals on Monday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Marion Scrymgour returned to Wurrumiyanga to find a tree she planted years earlier upended. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Marion Scrymgour was joined by NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro and federal Emergency Management Minister Kristy McBain. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n
With no purpose-built cyclone shelter on the Tiwi Islands, most of the town sheltered inside a school hall during the storm.<\/p>\n
“Luckily, the principal of the school told everyone to move to the school, because from category two it turned to category three and we knew it was a dangerous cyclone,” local John Wilson said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
John Wilson lives in the remote NT community north of Darwin and says locals were lucky to have the school as a shelter. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n
On Monday, crews were working to remove trees and restore electricity to the town.<\/p>\n
Tai Routledge said “probably about 30, maybe 40” trees had fallen over power lines.<\/p>\n
“The cyclone’s come through and absolutely blitzed all the trees,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It pushed [trees] onto the power lines, pushed it across our power station.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Power and Water crews work to repair power outages across the Tiwi Islands after the cyclone. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Severe Tropical Cyclone Fina brought down power lines and damaged buildings in Wurrumiyanga on Saturday. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n
He said the entire recovery would take up to two weeks.<\/p>\n
Tiwi Regional Council Deputy Chief Executive Heidi Dorn said that by Monday afternoon, power had been restored to most homes in Wurrumiyanga.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Several homes on the Tiwi Islands lost power, with many restored by Monday afternoon. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n
“There is one small area of the community that isn’t back on because we do have a major tree down [on a power line], but the majority have it, which is very fortunate,” she said.<\/p>\n
“The other major communities [on the Tiwi Islands] have still got power \u2014 they got theirs up pretty quickly.<\/p>\n
“We do have people out on homelands in outstations at the moment that don’t have power.”<\/p>\n
At a town barbecue on Monday, Ms Scrymgour said the local community had done a good job ensuring everyone was safe.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Locals came together on Monday to connect over a community barbecue. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n
“We see the usual damage, trees down and the power lines,” she said.<\/p>\n
“But the message that we take away from this is that nobody got hurt.<\/p>\n
“Everyone worked together to make sure that everyone had a safe shelter and people were fed.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Police officers chatting to Wurrumiyanga residents who felt the impact of Severe Tropical Cyclone Fina. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The community banded together to wait out the the cyclone. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Darwin experienced the outer edge of Severe Tropical Cyclone Fina at the weekend, the eye of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,179433,145729,179430,170039,179429,75,169015,179428,179427,179432,179425,170030,179426,95092,86778,128,171837,170064,14301,170024,179424,179431],"class_list":["post-318017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bathurst-island","tag-cyclone","tag-cyclone-clean-up","tag-cyclone-fina","tag-cyclone-recovery","tag-environment","tag-fina","tag-island-community","tag-island-cyclone","tag-melville-island","tag-milikapiti","tag-nt-cyclone","tag-pirlangimpi","tag-remote-community","tag-remote-nt","tag-science","tag-severe-tropical-cyclone-fina","tag-tiwi-island","tag-tiwi-islands","tag-tropical-cyclone-fina","tag-wurrumiyanga","tag-wurrumiyanga-cyclone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}