Mothers making a difference after Cyclone Larry

When the force of nature unleashed Tropical Cyclone Larry on Far North Queensland, it was the power of four mothers that brought a ray of sunshine to the heart-broken community. Kerie Hull reports.

Take yourself on an imaginary walk around your neighbourhood. Imagine one out of every three homes without a roof. Imagine one out of five shops and businesses in a twisted heap. Imagine every school in need of repair, and imagine more than half the local hotels and accommodation houses being shut down for months. Imagine the very lifeblood of the community – agricultural crops – shredded. Now, imagine the tempest that tore this community apart.

For many outside of ground zero, the legacy of Tropical Cyclone Larry is the exorbitant $3 banana. But, for those living in the bitter aftermath of the devastation in Far North Queensland, it is the tide of goodness that will be etched in memory.

While the men dealt with the wrath of Larry in a physical sense from dawn until dusk, out with chainsaws clearing property and roads, assisting friends, family, neighbours and strangers by stringing up tarps, building makeshift accommodation and cleaning up wreckage, mothers were left holding the babies, literally.

This group of four mums wanted to do something more. It was their babies who’d brought them together at breast-feeding association meetings four years earlier. Realising the value in sharing the joys of motherhood – sleep deprivation, lapsed social life and the constant battle to regain the figure that once was – sisters Katy Garner, 25, and Peace Mitchell, 34, set up St Rita’s Scallywags Playgroup.

“It became more for us than the kids,” says Katy. “Mums new to the area were looking to connect and find their place in the local community, especially first-time mums without family support.”

In the days and weeks following Cyclone Larry, they did what they could as individuals. Karen Portelli, 36, a former bank manager, lives close to the hospital and had electricity before most people. She started her own spaghetti-on-wheels service to help those with no power. “I felt a great need to help people. I felt guilty that I didn’t lose my home and that I had power. I couldn’t do enough to help.”

Liz Provians, 32, a secondary art teacher and artist, delivered clothes, dry mattresses and toys for those in need, and rallied donations from school staff and accommodation houses in nearby Cairns for those who had lost homes. Katy minded friends’ children and checked on elderly neighbours.

Peace was dealing with the loss of her own pawpaw farm but, as a teacher, she home-schooled friends’ children until schools were reopened. It was a stressful period, which she says she finds difficult to recall. “That first month following Larry is a blur – no phones, no electricity – I think we were barely holding things together.”

Karen also hosted girls’ nights to keep people talking. “We had to keep an eye on the playgroup mothers who’d lost everything. Overnight, their lives were forever changed. They were grieving. They were facing the prospect of walking away from their farms to find work elsewhere.”

About four months after the cyclone, the large contingent of army personnel headed home – along with the media. With less public exposure, life to the outside world appeared back to normal. But 120 consecutive days of rain stifled the rebuilding process and set the scene for a bleak economic outlook.

People were desperate to move forward. “But they couldn’t,” says Peace, “Everywhere you went, people would still be talking about their experiences. The town was a pressure pot. Everyone was dealing with their situation individually, putting on a brave face. Behind the scenes, there was domestic tension, huge financial stress… and in typical Australian style… those that needed to talk, didn’t.”

“We’ve seen grown men cry and children shut down because of the trauma experienced the night of the cyclone. There are children on antidepressants, but no-one talks about that,” Katy adds.

It was the words of their own children that prompted the next phase of the mothers’ journey. “Our children in kindy and in schools had written stories about their Cyclone Larry experiences, and we were amazed at the wisdom in their words,” explains Karen. “Teachers had recognised the need for children to recount and make sense of what they’d witnessed. Kids had experienced fear at its worst. They’d lost their homes, their schools, their farms, and they saw behind the brave faces of their mothers and fathers. Their young lives had been swept up and screwed into knots.”

This was the defining moment. “We had found our purpose: to form a charity to help mothers with young children. We’d realised how easily the voices of the children had been overlooked, how they wanted to contribute to the recovery process, but felt powerless,” says Katy.

The newly dubbed Mothers Helping Others elected to produce a book of children’s stories, based on their recollections, entitled Cyclone Larry: Tales of Survival from the Children of North Queensland (available through www.mothershelpingothers.org). Their official place of meeting is at the Off the Rails cafe in the sugar hamlet of South Johnstone, not far from the playgroup headquarters and close to the town of Innisfail.

It is not the first time the mothers have published a book together. A year earlier, their fundraising efforts for the playgroup consisted of a cookbook for busy mums, featuring quick and easy meals. Working side by side with other playgroup mums, the project highlighted their talents conducive to publishing. Liz has a creative, arty flair for layout.
Katy volunteered her desktop publishing skills, adding that, “Karen is our typist and any-other-job-that-needs-doing person, and Peace is the writer, photographer and organiser; she keeps us focused.”

The mothers had several goals for their new charity. “We wanted to raise funds to weatherproof playgrounds and repair those damaged during the cyclone.Above all, we wanted to provide a voice for the children and open a door for those parents who were still finding it too difficult to talk about. As adults, we could have written a book with our stories, our emotions, our experiences and our tears and triumphs but, instead, we wanted to let the children do the talking,” says Katy.

“A local man, Paul Oliveri, initiated a short-story writing competition at the annual Innisfail show, and we set about collecting works from schools and kindergartens, compiling the stories, photographs and artworks. There were many late-night typing pools, many hours on the phone, and lots of production meetings. Our husbands have been very supportive, but also they tease us with their own derivative names for Mothers Helping Others, and they have their own ‘group’, Fathers Helping Themselves, which amuses them endlessly,” Liz laughs.

Neither the grind nor their husbands’ jocular antics deterred their enthusiam.

In fact, the more they read, the more steely was their resolve to finish the book – 250 stories, poems and artworks.

“The children’s stories gave us new perspectives. In just a few words, these little people captured the essence of what we’d all felt on the day,” says Karen. “Tiny sentences as simple as, ‘Scary, sad, I’m lucky’, or, ‘Big wind, lots of chainsaws, we had to leave’, encapsulate the experience.

“Some simple voices, some with wisdom beyond their years. These are the real stories of Cyclone Larry as never told before,” says Karen.

Many of the children’s stories gratefully acknowledge the work of the State Emergency Service, Ergon Energy, the Australian Red Cross, the army, fire and rescue workers, and countless other volunteers who came to help. “There’s one little boy still waiting for Bob the Builder,” says Karen with a smile.

“Families featured in the book are so proud of their children’s work, and are glad to be involved in such a positive community project. Teachers interstate and overseas are using it as a teaching resource,” says Liz, who organised the book’s mental health tips to help children recover from trauma. It also includes information about cyclones in Australia and factual details of Larry’s path.

As one local personality said after reading the book: “I cried, I laughed, I cried again… all before page 11.” Mothers Helping Others dearly hopes it will have the same impact on the men of their heart-broken region. “They haven’t been able to heal because they don’t talk about it; many can’t move on,” says Peace.

Many of the child authors have been involved in book signings and book readings on ABC Radio. Their work has raised more than $45,000, and for the hard-working mothers driving this project, the reward is in the design and  completion of an all-weather playground.

While Mothers Helping Others has plans to assist mums in other communities, for now, there’s still work to be done locally. In the past few weeks, they’ve set up a support playgroup for teenage mums. “Mothers are the backbone of our communities and it is important they feel appreciated and provided for. If we can raise the profile of the role of mothers along the way, then that will be some good to come from Cyclone Larry.”

 

Extracts from the book

Lauren, 10, Mourilyan State School
“Mum searched my body for glass before even looking at herself. When she was finished, I moved into a corner and tried so hard to stop shaking. When Mum came back to the bathroom, we saw blood running down her arm and her foot.”

Cassian, 11, Mourilyan State School
“We have a pet pig whose name is Runner, and Mum had to paint a big sign to put on her in pink paint. The sign said: ‘Pet’. She is out of the pen because Cyclone Larry blew away our fences and now she just walks all around the yard. Our dog, Misty, is going mad trying to round up animals in a pen that just isn’t there anymore.”

Louise, 12, Yungaburra
“I looked out into one of the paddocks, and there was our roof. The loud noise was our roof ripping off. The spare room was getting too wet, so we decided to move into the laundry. It was hard to walk to the laundry as the house was shaking. We all thought we were going to die.”

Flynn, five, Pre-K Our Lady of Good Counsel School
“During the cyclone, I saw a bucket flying around outside my window and glass shooting into the grass. I saw my nanna’s airconditioner blow out. There was a hole in the place where the airconditioner used to be.”

The aftermath

Cyclone Larry wiped out 12,500 hectares of prime agricultural land, left 120,000 people without power and rendered 4,000 homes unsafe. After more than a year, the verdant, resurgent banana plantations and sugarcane fields that surround Innisfail seem a potent symbol of recovery. The Far North promotes itself as “Green like you’ve never seen”. But, while green is again the prominent colour, the blues, oranges and yellows of tarpaulins can still be seen stretching over about 100 homes. Windows are still boarded up with plastic sheeting, plywood and corrugated iron. It is estimated the exotic fruit and nut industry could take a decade to recover.

Photography: Scott Hawkins. Hair & make-up: Rachael Gregory.