Another Cyclone

Mrs hinge has worked in the area for a long time. And not in Canberra, but on the ground, as it were.

Welfare is a tough one. Did you know that indigenous communities had 'work for the dole' a long time before JH introduced it (I think it was under Fraser, but maybe Hawke). Tribal elders in NT knew that giving their people money for nothing would kill them. Read the fish story in Richard Trudgen's 'Why Warriors Lie Down And Die' (review at: http://www.ards.com.au/ww_r5.htm ).

Needless to say, the issues are not black and white. But the government's refusal to get up close and personal with the issues is criminal. When funding decisions are based on the 'front page test' ie let's keep funding a corrupt organisation (not referring to CYP at all) because it's CEO says he'll go to the papers and the minister doesn't want the publicity - or worse yet - throwing unrequested money at communities because said minister doesn't want a headline that says indigenous funding is down on previous years - regardless of how effective that funding is...

I'm not a Noel fan, but that doesn't mean he's wrong. I think Noel's theory is if he goes hard on one generation the one's that follow might have it easier. My 'coconut' comment, for the unitiated is an aboriginal slang term for someone black on the outside and white on the inside. Noel was mission-educated. Philosophically if you are indigenous and you have to learn to be 'white' to deal with white society, are you still 'black'?

Also NT is not Cape York, Arnhem land indigenes still have 'culture' to varying degrees.

As Mrs Hinge is wont to say 'Imagine you grew up in a family where your parents were always pissed, never worked and your two year old sister had syphilis - how would you turn out?'

How do we break that cycle? I know as little as anyone else.

Thank you Hinge....I know.


I sometimes work as a therapist with aboriginal families trying to do just that......oy veh! And the VIOLENCE!!!

I will go to your url later.

I would love it if your wife ever felt like sharing her knowledge here?

Deb, I didn't realise you get to see the supremely ugly side too. I bet you feel like your nailing jelly to the ceiling as well. Mrs H can get very down. And angry. But mostly just frustrated by it all.

I've tried to get on A2K but it's not her thing - she doesn't much like me on it either.

Oy!

Yes, I certainly HEAR about the dark side...and see the effects.


Or some of it.

But Aboriginal families are only a fairly small part of my work as a therapist, and I do not do welfare work, so I am not immersed in the hole.


I was more when I worked as an 'umble probation and parole officer, though.


It is a tad embarrassing sometimes...I see very prominent Aboriginal people sometimes, and they look at me and say they know me from SOMEWHERE.


I cannot really chirp brightly that I was their probation or parole officer, and how is Auntie Veronica, and the reason they aren't sure who I am is because the bastids never kept their bloody appointments.

Now I'm freakin' out.

Niece, nephew, & 8 month pregnant sis-in-law being flown off Goulburn Island right now (I hope) but my brother will be the last to leave...which means he's staying. There are more than 250 people there. This looks WAY worse than Ingrid last year.

At least this time my mother isn't there.

See, that's what you guys get for siding with Bush.

We got it last summer and now it's your turn.

God's pissed; or anyway that's what Falwell and Robertson said.

Eorl - who had Goulburn in the pool? Hope your people are safe. Bet the Darwinese are worried too...

And Monica has five cats...jiminy.

and a massive eye with winds of 350k.

possibly the strongest (recorded) ever to hit the coast of Australia apparently.

Good news is I think my brother was evacuated along with the other 250 people. They were cutting it pretty fine!

Now they just need to survive on the mainland, but chances are much better than on that bloody stupid flat island !!

Oh, man. Well, let us know how it goes, Eorl.

Well, Darwin made it, and Monica lost a lot of puff:

Goulburn Island residents heading home after cyclone Monica
Goulburn Island residents are itching to return home, now the threat to their community from cyclone Monica has passed.

The community had been moved to a caravan park at Pine Creek, 220 kilometres south of Darwin.

The 337 people were evacuated yesterday, as then category 5 cyclone Monica headed straight towards the island, north-east of Darwin.

It is the first time many of them have ever been to the mainland.

Allen Gebadi says it has been all right.

"The Army boys have been looking after us," he said.

The Army is not sure when the island's dirt airstrip will be dry enough for people to return.

But community leader Bung Kalamunda is already planning something special for the eight people who chose to stay behind.

"They were brave to stay and we are thinking of having a little ceremony, a little thanking," he said.

He says there will be speeches and plenty of dancing.

Meanwhile, Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin says she will travel to west Arnhem Land communities tomorrow to assess any damage from cyclone Monica.

Ms Martin says she will visit communities including Oenpelli and Maningrida as well as the town of Jabiru.

"Much of the damage is to public housing and that is something that we will be looking at how to repair as quickly as possible something like the school in Maningrida," she said.

"The school was the shelter, it lost either part of its roof or a substantial section of its roof."

Cyclone downgraded

The Bureau of Meteorology has downgraded Cyclone Monica to a tropical low, but says it could reintensify in the Timor Sea overnight.

A cyclone warning has been cancelled for the Darwin region as the centre of ex-tropical Cyclone Monica sits just to the north of the city.

Senior forecaster Gordon Jackson says wind speeds that reached 350 kilometres an hour when Monica was a category 5 storm have now dropped to about 30 kilometres an hour.

But he says a cyclone could reform as it moves west over water in the next 12 to 18 hours.

"it's still got the low-level centre and so as it moves over the water, it can actually develop very quickly, so looking at 12 hours, we'd probably see a category 1 system develop again, and in 24 to 36 hours, possibly a category 2, with destructive winds around that," he said.

Arnhem highway reopened

The Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment says the Farnham Highway has been reopened.

Several trees were blocking the highway between the Kakadu park gates and Jabiru earlier today.

A spokesman for the Department says there is now some water over the Farnham highway at Wildman River.

He says the road is still passable at this stage although he is advising against driving on the road at night.

Schools to reopen

The Education Department says all schools in Darwin and Palmerston will open tomorrow.

Jabiru Area School will be closed for the day until fallen trees are clear.

Acting deputy chief executive of the Education Department John Dove says it has been difficult to communicate with remote Indigenous schools, but most should be open tomorrow.

Mr Dove says Maningrida's roof damage could keep the school shut for some time, and Milingimbi will be closed tomorrow.

"Milingimbi, the school is staff are busy cleaning up there, but it'll probably take till Thursday til they can get the school clean enough to open it up," he said.

"As best as we can communicate the other schools across the rest of the Top End are fine."

The Milkwood Steiner School in the Darwin suburb of Nightcliff will open but it has asked as many students as possible to stay home, to allow teachers to unpack classrooms.

Phone services

Telstra says it might be able to resume some phone services in communities affected by Monica tomorrow.

Telstra Countrywide manager Mark Sweet says cyclone Monica had a significant impact on phone services in the north-west Farnham Land region.

He says about 1,000 phone lines are out in the communities of Oenpelli, Maningrida, Milingimbi and Gapuwiyak.

But he says the damage from Monica could have been worse.

"It appears at this point in time that it's alignment issues rather than bent powers and structures like that," he said.

"So if it is alignment the restoration process will be much quicker than having to straighten steel and replace things and the like."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200604/s1623553.htm



but:

Monica flattens remote town
Email Print Normal font Large font By Linsday Murdoch and Jane Holroyd
April 25, 2006 - 5:09PM

Related coverage
Darwin spared as cyclone heads south
Emergency services have yet to land in the Northern Territory town of Maningrida, believed to be the worst affected by cyclone Monica.

While a plane carrying staff from the NT's Department of Planning and Infrastructure flew over the area this afternoon, it is believed they could not land because there was too much debris on the airstrip.

Earlier today, freelance photographer Jake Nowakowski told The Age that the 200-strong Aboriginal community 570km south of Darwin was a "bleak picture". He said the local school, where many people took shelter, had suffered heavy damage while several people had sustained injuries.

But a spokeswoman from the Department of Planning and Infrastructure was unable to confirm whether any locals had been injured, saying the plane carrying department staff was not expected to arrive back in Darwin until late this evening.

In Jabiru, 300 kilometres south-west of Maningrida in Kakadu National Park, at least 12 houses have been damaged by falling trees.

Resident Shelley Smith told theage.com.au that the tourist town of about 1500 people looked like "a war zone" after cyclone Monica passed through just after 1am today.

She said two houses had lost their roofs. "You can't drive around because there are trees down everywhere," she said. Mrs Smith said some houses had lost power and local emergency services had been working all day to clear trees from roads......

FULL STORY




but they bounced back:

Island community remains intact after cyclone Monica
The island community of Milingimbi off Northern Territory's Arnhem Land coast says it has managed to make it through cyclone Monica relatively unscathed.

Milingimbi school principal Glen Aitchison says the area copped a battering yesterday but the weather has now eased to a drizzle.

He says 250 people from the island's two beach camps were evacuated to the school last night.

Mr Aitchison also says landlines are still down and electricity has been on and off.

"A lot of tree damage around the place but miraculously although some big trees fell down most of them missed buildings and so there's very little building damage," he said.

"For those people thinking about flying in we've checked the airport this morning and the runway's clear as well."



Winnie and Jimmy Mason with the wreckage of their home in Maningrida.
Photo: Glenn Campbell


http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/arnhem-land-bears-brunt-of-monicas-wrath/2006/04/25/1145861348238.html




And she loses her cats:

Cyclone Monica Heads South of Darwin; Downgraded to Category 1
April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Tropical Cyclone Monica, the fifth major storm to hit north Australia this year, maintained its track toward the south of the city of Darwin after being downgraded four levels of intensity to a category one storm.

Monica was downgraded to category one from a previous rating of category five, the most severe, and its center is expected to pass to the south of Darwin later today, according to an advisory on the Bureau of Meteorology's Web site. At 10 a.m. Monica was located about 60 kilometers (35 miles) east south-east of Darwin and moving west at 25 kilometers per hour.

Winds of 90 kilometers an hour are being experienced 50 kilometers from the center. Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, has a population of more than 100,000 people. Monica was generating winds of up to 350 kilometers an hour yesterday.

Heavy rain is expected to cause ``significant stream rises and flooding of low lying areas'' across the top of the Northern Territory, the Bureau said earlier. Monica is expected to cross into the Timor Sea later today and regain strength........


FULL STORY


Phew??????????????

Mostly we're just happy the horses on Goulburn Island are OK (and Eorl's kin, too)

Yeah, phew, 'cause nobody died. (at least not directly from Monica).

Ironically all my kin evacuated to Bachelor, south of Darwin, as it turns out directly into the path it eventually took. But it weakened to Cat 1 by then, so not really a problem. Bit wet now though.

I'm impressed that they did evacuate Goulbourn in the end. It's the first time they have. Gives me more confidence in the NT authorities.