On Christmas morning in 1974, as most Australians were waking up to excitedly unwrap presents, Pam McMahon was desperately clinging to her baby son, fighting for their lives in the eye of Cyclone Tracy.
Pam and her husband, Peter, were living in Darwin, NT, with four-month-old Matthew when they heard reports that a cyclone was forecast to strike on December 25.
Like most residents, the couple were accustomed to tropical storms and cyclones. However, as midnight approached on Christmas Eve, their calm quickly turned to terror.
The category-four storm arrived with brutal force. Power and communication lines were cut off as fierce wind gusts drove rain horizontally into the McMahon’s home.
“I picked up Matthew from his cot, and suddenly there was a deafening noise as the windows in the lounge room shattered,” Pam, 77, tells New Idea.
“I held him tightly against my chest as we huddled in the bathroom in darkness, thinking, ‘We won’t survive this; no one could.’
“When Peter looked out and saw that the kitchen, dining room and lounge had blown away, we said goodbye to each other.”
Peter, 79, recalls the overwhelming fear he experienced as he shut the door and watched the bathroom wall begin to crumble.
Moments later, as 217-kilometre-per-hour winds tore through their home, the last bit of their shelter was ripped apart.
The powerful gusts lifted the floorboards and carried Peter, Pam and Matthew about 20 metres, dropping them into their yard.
With no protection and wearing only summer clothes, they lay in the darkness, lashed by freezing rain and howling gales.
“It was pitch black, I’d lost my glasses, and I was using an air conditioning unit to shield myself from the debris,” Peter says.
“Pam and Matthew were only six metres away but the noise of the cyclone was like a roaring engine so I couldn’t hear anything.
“I didn’t know if they were dead or alive.”
In what she can only describe as a miracle, Pam landed on top of Matthew, who was dressed in just a nappy and a singlet.
Despite being barely able to move or lift her head, Pam spotted a large metal trunk on the ground beside her, one she used to store fabric.
“Iron and all sorts of things were flying through the air and I couldn’t move,” she recalls.
“Somehow, I managed to raise my hand enough to pull a piece of material from the trunk. I wrapped Matthew in it, and he fell asleep, which brought me some comfort.”
After being pinned down for more than three hours, dawn broke and the winds finally subsided. While Darwin had been flattened, Pam and Matthew emerged unharmed, with Peter suffering a few cuts.
Tragically, 66 people died in Cyclone Tracy and more than 600 were injured. It took three years for Darwin to be rebuilt.
Pam and Peter moved to Canberra afterwards, where they welcomed three daughters.
Five decades later, Peter still marvels at his wife’s instinct to protect their son, even after she was hurled from the top floor of their home.
“Pam’s strength in keeping hold of Matthew for so long was nothing short of a miracle,” he adds.
“Seeing them both alive was incredible and we shared a big hug.”
