It was an intense weekend for Top End residents as they prepared for and then sought refuge from Tropical Cyclone Fina, a category three system which travelled close to the NT coastline on Saturday.
When locals across Darwin and the Tiwi Islands awoke on Sunday morning, hundreds of trees were down across the region, along with some powerlines — some of which caused damage to people’s homes.
As a new week begins, here’s what you need to know about what happens next.
Will schools be open in Darwin?
In a statement on Sunday, the NT Department of Education said it was “working to ensure all government schools” would open on Monday.
However, due to a loss of power or “significant damage”, 17 schools have been forced to close today for essential repairs.
- Alawa Primary School
- Bees Creek Primary School
- Belyuen School
- Berry Springs Primary School
- Darwin High School
- Darwin Middle School
- Driver Primary School
- Dundee Beach School
- Howard Springs Primary School
- Humpty Doo Primary School
- Leanyer Primary School
- Middle Point School
- Moil Primary School
- Nemarluk School
- NT School of Distance Education
- Taminmin College
- Woodroffe Primary School
All of these schools should have contacted families directly overnight to notify them of the closure.
Parents should have been notified overnight about whether their children’s school will be open on Monday. (ABC News: Timothy Ailwood)
The department added that it was going to reach out to early-child services and private schools to “determine the status of their operations.”
One of the Tiwi Islands’ main secondary schools — Tiwi College — also announced on Sunday that it would be forced to close “until further notice” due to the damage done to the school grounds by Cyclone Fina.
“There has been extensive damage done to the insides of some of our currently occupied Family Group Homes, our Administration building was flooded,” the statement on Tiwi College’s Facebook page read.
“We have issues with water supply and there is much cleaning up around the grounds to make it safe for students.
“[We] will reopen as soon as possible.”
In a statement on Facebook, Tiwi College said some of the school’s buildings had been damaged and “flooded”. (Supplied: Tiwi College)
What about supermarkets and other businesses?
The NT Police Force’s incident controller, Kirsten Engels, said businesses were expected to “run as normal” on Monday, which meant most Top End residents would return to work.
Superintendent Engels said the only exception would be if a particular workplace had safety concerns.
“Then it’s up to the individual workplace to deal with that and manage it,”
she said.
On Sunday, the ABC received reports that a number of Woolworths stores had opened across the greater Darwin region, including at Gateway, Casuarina, Darwin CBD, Coolalinga, Humpty Doo and Leanyer.
Other branches were forced to remain closed due to a loss of power on Saturday night, but the supermarket giant said it hoped to resolve the issues by Monday and return to business as usual.
When will I get my power back?
In the aftermath of Cyclone Fina on Sunday, it was reported that about 19,500 homes and businesses had lost power.
By Sunday evening, the ABC understood that 2,500 customers from parts of Wagaman, Marrara, Moil, Larrakeyah, Ludmilla and Girraween had their power restored.
Michael Bessalink, executive general manager of core operations at Power and Water Corporation, said he could not at this point give “a clear timeline on when power will be back to all customers”.
Mr Bessalink said Power and Water crews had to assess the network before they could offer an ETA.
Michael Bessalink says Power and Water cannot yet provide an estimate to residents on when their power will be restored. (ABC News)
“Unlike a normal fault, this can have multiple faults miles apart from each other on the same line, and so we can’t just look at one area and think that we’ve actually got it, we have to go assess the entire lines of different areas,” he said.
“Because we don’t want to re-energise any power lines unless we are very sure that there is no risk to the public.
“If we get to a natural point where we can isolate everything [from what] is further down [the line] that we haven’t assessed, we can then restore power up to that point and we’ve been able to do that successfully today with 2,500 customers.”
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Mr Bessalink said 80 per cent of the Darwin, Palmerston and rural area network had been assessed on Sunday and the rest would be finished on Monday.
Following the assessment, Mr Bessalink said crews would be able to identify the true extent of the damage and provide a more accurate sense for when power could be restored.
“As we work things out, we’ll be progressively be putting those on our website,” he said.
NT Police Commissioner Martin Dole said it could be “some days” before power was fully restored on the Tiwi Islands.
Cars, buses and flights
Superintendent Engels encouraged people driving on Top End roads over the coming days to “really take care” and “drive to the conditions”.
Cleaning up after a storm or cyclone
“We’ve got a lot of traffic lights that are out,” she said.
“If there’s a light out, don’t blow through that intersection, slow down, act as if it’s a give way sign.”
Superintendent Engels said all public buses would be operating on Monday.
Darwin International Airport’s executive general manager, Rob Porter, said the “runway held up extremely well” and the airport was “back up and running again”.
However, he did note that the airport would continue to “monitor the weather conditions over the next few days”.
What about the hospitals?
All hospitals and medical centres “remain operational” across Darwin and Palmerston as are the medical centres on the Tiwi Islands.
Royal Darwin Hospital declared a code brown when the city entered the cyclone warning zone on Friday morning and began discharging patients to make room for any emergency admissions.
Part of a ceiling on the first floor of Royal Darwin Hospital collapsed during the cyclone on Saturday. (Supplied)
On Sunday, NT Health urged friends and relatives of patients not to visit.
“We are limiting visitors at this stage,” the department said in a statement.
“Parents, partners and essential caregivers to paediatric patients are welcome at this time.”