Geoffrey Thompson still remembers seeing the wreckage scattered across Darwin as he landed on the first flight back there on Boxing Day 1974.
"As we circled the town to land it was total chaos ... it was like a war zone," the 74-year-old tells SBS News.
"There was no running water, no power, no communications and the contents of the now flattened homes were strewn across the streets.
"There were also a lot of people in shock wandering around not knowing who had been injured, and others that had died."
Dr Thompson was 30 at the time and the senior medical officer for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in Darwin.
Geoff Thompson's job was to evacuate the sick and injured from Darwin. Source: Supplied/Geoff Thompson
His primary responsibility was to oversee the evacuation of those in the city who had been injured during the devastating event.
"We had to take them and transfer them to hospitals across Australia," he says.
"Darwin had very few general practitioners at the time so I'd do the RAAF work and then in my spare time I would do general practice work."
Over several days, he helped assess, treat and evacuate those who had been severely injured – all despite having lost his own home and belongings.
It was during this time he met Richard Crooks.
Dr Thompson standing in front of his home after Cyclone Tracy hit in 1974. Source: Supplied/Geoff Thompson
Mr Crooks was 11 when Cyclone Tracy destroyed his family's home. They were forced to bunker down at the Winnellie Pub with 30 others who had also been displaced by the destructive winds.
"It was a bit tough," Mr Crooks said.
"The roof was damaged upstairs, so it wasn't quite secure to elements of the weather, but everyone lost their houses."
The now 57-year-old said he'd been away visiting family in Adelaide for Christmas when the cyclone hit.
Dr Thompson in front of his rebuilt home today, 46 years after it was destroyed. Source: Aneeta Bhole
When he returned, it was the smell that remained imprinted on his memory.
"It was just mould, mildew and the stench was pretty bad," he said.
"Not long after that I got pretty sick. I couldn't eat, I couldn't walk, I had to be taken to the bathroom, taken to the shower.
"The clinics had seen me, and the other doctors had seen me, and then I ended up with Geoff and he sort of got me back on track."
Cyclone Tracy hit in the early hours of Christmas Day with official records reporting 49 deaths on land and 22 lost at sea.
Richard Crooks was only 11 when he fell ill in the aftermath of Cyclone Tracy. Source: Aneeta Bhole
Of the approximately 10,000 homes in the city at the time, only 408 remained intact.
It was reported that during the storm, 292mm of rain fell with wind gusts recorded at 217 km per hour before the anemometer recording system failed.
Northern Territory historian Jared Archibald said the cyclone reached close to Category 5 conditions and caused close to $800 million in damages, equivalent to $5 billion now.
"It basically destroyed Darwin," said Mr Archibald.
Of the approximately 10,000 homes in Darwin, only 408 remained intact. Source: Supplied/Geoff Thompson
"Around 45,000 people approximately experienced Cyclone Tracy and about 35,000 of them were evacuated."
One of those evacuated was Tricia Phillips, who described the devastating winds sounding similar to a train screeching to a halt outside her home.
"I remember telling my husband John, 'oh someone's lost their roof', and it was this terrible sound of iron crashing down the street," she said.
Ms Phillips didn't meet Dr Thompson during the weather event but said if it wasn't for people like him, things would have been even worse.
Tricia Phillips was among the thousands that were evacuated from Darwin. Source: Supplied/Geoff Thompson
"We couldn't have done it on our own, we wouldn't have had the resources to do it," she said.
"When it first happened, we felt like we were so isolated, so to be able to get the sick and injured people who needed to get out was so important."
Dr Thompson went on to have a distinguished career, dedicating time to performing general medical clinics in remote Indigenous communities, often using his own plane for transport.
Richard Crooks, John Phillips and Tricia Phillips all survived Cyclone Tracy. Source: Aneeta Bhole
He was also president and founding member of Sports Medicine Australia (Northern Territory) and has been the chief medical officer for the Australian Paralympic Committee since 2008.
Despite that, he is listed on the honour roll as one of the state's "quiet achievers".
Dr Thompson received the NT Australian of the Year award in November and will join recipients from other states in Canberra on Saturday 25 January for the 60th anniversary of the awards where the 2020 Australian of the Year will be announced.
