LIFESTYLE
AS Darwin residents slowly made their way out of the safety of their homes in the afternoon of Saturday March 17, 2018, the true extent of the worst cyclone since Tracy was fully appreciated.
Cars were flattened beneath trees, roads were blocked and trampolines were missing, having been lifted and taken by the roaring winds of Cyclone Marcus.
Under a clearing sky, the hum of chainsaws filled the air as those who could started on the clean-up.
Others inspected the damage caused to their property and checked on neighbours.
And the stories began to be told. There were those who held cyclone parties, those who sheltered at with family and those who lost their homes.
Despite Marcus, there were still events that needed to be celebrated. The most memorable? Birthdays and weddings.
Lisa and Thanasi Zaimakis’s Karama home sustained significant damage when a 30m mahogany fell during Cyclone Marcus.
The heavily pregnant Lisa and their daughter Melitini decided to bunk down at her parents’ home. Mr Zaimakis stayed at the house.
While sheltering he heard a loud crack as the tree came down onto the back end of their home.
The African mahogany had smashed through the roof, in turn allowing the house to flood.
“We had bought it and we were moving in and more than half our stuff was in the house,” Ms Zaimakis remembers.
“Then we had to move back out. We had to look for somewhere else to live.”
While the family was insured, the fight to get their home fixed was a lengthy one.
They weren’t able to move into their home until October, seven months after the cyclone hit.
“It was months and months of nothing. It was insane — I was having a nervous breakdown,” Ms Zaimakis says.
Just dealing with the builders contracted through their insurance had been a struggle.
“It was the biggest nightmare in the world and it was all promises and no action,” she says.
“They were like ‘ we are going to do this job so good it’s going to be a new house’.
“But they hadn’t even painted the walls.
“I had to call them back so many times to redo the job they’d been asked to do.”
While the house has been repaired, the trauma of the cyclone remains.
The Zaimakis family, terrified another tree could again cause that much damage to their home and lives, have since removed about 60 from their garden.
“We talk about it all the time and we look at the garden and go, ‘how many trees can we chop down?’ We have that in our system, we don’t want another incident like that,” Ms Zaimakis says.
“People say we are lucky but you don’t want a tree through your house.
“We get nervous about any tree really.”
About 10 palm trees remain