Emergency response and clean up
The first official responses to the cyclone were almost certainly those of the NT Police. During the day on 24 December emergency preparations were made at Darwin and Casuarina police stations. Tools and first aid materials were collected, and the Commissioner warned officers on duty that their afternoon shifts might be extended.
Toward midnight the police received telephoned reports of damage. Officers were sent to scenes of road blockages and fallen power lines. Mobile patrols warned people to take shelter. By midnight 150 non-police were sheltering at police stations. At 1 AM all call outs ceased, except where rescues to save lives were needed. Three such rescues were made.
At daylight mobile patrols resumed; road clearance was attempted; medical aid was found for the injured; and mortuaries were set up. Patrols estimated that 90% of all Darwin buildings were damaged or destroyed, and that the destruction was complete in parts of the northern suburbs. At 8 AM the Commissioner called a meeting at which police responses were allocated. An approach was made to school authorities for formal permission to use schools as emergency centres. Permission to deal with bodies was obtained from the coroner. Morgues were set up at police stations. Officers co-ordinated the establishment of cooking, hygiene, first aid, and recording facilities at the school emergency centres. Searches for dead and injured in the worst hit areas were begun.
27 police officers were injured during the cyclone, as were 49 relatives of police.
During Christmas morning several public service, community, and emergency service leaders made their way to police headquarters. As a result, the Commissioner convened a "leadership" meeting at 2 PM. It was agreed to evaluate damage and to meet again at 6 PM. The second meeting agreed "Darwin had, for the time being, ceased to exist as a city", and that damage was so serious that evacuation (of unspecified extent) would be necessary.
It should here be noted that these early assessments of the cyclone's physical and social impacts were (understandably) excessively pessimistic. They provided a foundation for later actions which flowed from the notion that Darwin had "ceased to exist" or was "doomed".
At 10.20 PM on Christmas night Major-General Stretton arrived at Darwin airport. At about midnight Stretton met wiof the Department of Northern Territory, and the Minister for the Northern Territory. The next morning a "leaders" meeting was convened, and regular meetings were held during the next five days, under Stretton's chairmanship.
Following Stretton's arrival the role of the Commissioner became subsidiary, but the responsibilities of police officers nevertheless remained wide ranging. Most officers ate on the job, and slept when and where they could. Local officers were given some relief from the afternoon of 27 December 1974, when 184 officers arrived, on loan from interstate forces. Between then and the end of January 1975 a total of 387 interstate officers served in Darwin.
One police duty which attracted wide and misinformed publicity was patrols to shoot packs of marauding dogs - many owners had turned their animals loose before evacuation.
(see generally on the police role McLaren)