The total cost of Tracy in 1974 was estimated to have been $837 million. Accounting for inflation, that would be more than $8 billion today.

Wind gusts reached 217 km/h before the anemometer at Darwin Airport was destroyed

255mm of rain fell in 12 hours overnight, 14 mm in the two half-hour periods on either side of the eye of the cyclone

66 people were killed, 145 people were seriously injured; more than 500 received minor injuries. Most of those who lost their lives were killed by flying debris.

Until 2008, Cyclone Tracy held the world record for smallest cyclone area with gale force winds extending only 50 kilometres from its centre.

Darwin had been threatened by Cyclone Selma weeks before Tracy, leading the population to become complacent.

Darwin had been hit by two major cyclones previously – in 1897 and 1937.

25,628 people were evacuated by air, and 7,234 left by road. One week later only 10,638 people remained in Darwin.

A Qantas Airline charter with 674 people that was part in the air evacuation still holds the world record for the most amount of people ever flown on a 747 at one time. In the next three days, there were 102 flights airlifting over 25,000 people to southern capital cities.

Darwin may have been saved from more casualties because the tide was running out, sparing coastal suburbs from cyclonic surges. There was a storm surge of 1.6 metres in Darwin’s harbour; an estimated four metres at Casuarina Beach.

About 70 percent of houses suffered serious structural failure and only 500 out of 12,000 homes escaped serious damage. There was no power, running water, sewerage or telephone communication for weeks.

After Tracy improved building standards that would apply across the entire country. These included requirements that buildings be clad to protect them against flying debris, and that tall roofs be tied to the foundations.

On 28 February 1975 the Whitlam government established the Darwin Reconstruction Commission. The commission’s mandate was to reconstruct Darwin within five years – it achieved this in a little more than three.