After Tropical Cyclone Marcus battered much of the Northern Territory over the weekend, the huge clean-up operation has begun.
With winds in excess of 130km/h, heavy rain, flooding, road closures and mass power outages , the category two storm certainly left its mark … and nowhere more so than at Darwin’s Boomerang Caravan Park
Holiday cabins were lifted metres into the air, branches came crashing down, and at least seven large African mahogany trees were sent toppling … one of them directly on top of a caravan.
The van’s owner, who did not want to be identified, told 9NEWS he’d been cooking when his son called to say the cyclone was approaching and urged him to leave the caravan park. An hour after he left, the tree came crashing down.
Another caravan became trapped under the branches of a mahogany and staff at the caravan park had to help free its occupant.
Ray McCasker said the man was too scared to leave the caravan at first.
“I came down, told him he had to get out and forced the door open,” told 9NEWS. “We squeezed him out but I think he was pretty scared.”
The owner of Boomerang Caravan Park, Ben McCasker, said they would now be racing to repair the park in time for the dry season and the grey nomad influx.
“I think I’m going to have to get some cranes in to do some heavy lifting,” he said. “It’s five, six weeks we hope before the tourists start coming up … we want to make sure the park is fully functioning when they arrive.”
Across the Top End, large mahogany trees toppled over in the cyclone and re-ignited debate whether they should be removed. There have previously been fatal accidents after the trees have fallen.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner said the NT Government began considering the removal mahoganies after a large storm in January that also resulted in the trees toppling over.
“It’s a program about essentially taking away our African Mahoganies and replacing them with alternative natives,” he told 9NEWS. “In light of the cyclone, I think it’s important we look at what did fall over because it’s much more than mahoganies.”
We have been in 3 cyclones in Darwin African mohoganes have toppled over each time, in general trees lose branches on a regular basis so we don’t Park under large, , older trees, our van is our home and we want to be safe
Xmas day 2012 at Discovery Darwin one of those stinking mahoganies came down (without a cyclone) about 2m from my van, whilst sitting out under the awning with the entire family (including newborn granddaughter). Very lucky that day. Darwin needs to flick each and every one of those trees. They just don’t have the root system to stand up to their rapid growth.
Only been through one cyclone up there and it was a non event for me, as being from WA I’ve dealt with stronger afternoon sea breezes. The prospect terrifies me though, and having just been part of the heavy rains in FNQ, it certainly makes you analyse the weather closely.