24
BAMOS
Sept 2017
Article
The North Sydney Tornado of 1906
Richard Whitaker
Richard Whitaker
AMOS NSW
54/29 Brunswick Rd, TERRIGAL, 2260
[email protected]
Introduction
Sydney experiences occasional severe thunderstorms, but
those producing tornadoes are happily a rare occurrence.
One such storm struck the North Shore around 2 pm on
Tuesday 27 March 1906, spawning a tornado that cut a swathe
of devastation through the area, with a fatality recorded in the
suburb of Naremburn.
Many houses were damaged, several completely wrecked and
there was considerable dislocation of the local infrastructure
including telephone lines and fencing. Scores of trees were torn
from the ground and the debris carried a considerable distance
from the storm itself.
The incident shocked eyewitnesses to the event but also the
general population when accounts began to emerge across
newspapers during the next few days. It was not generally
realised at the time that Sydney could be hit with a tornado.
Newspaper reports of the incident — early
photographs
The Sydney Morning Herald produced an extensive report the
next day under the headline “Violent Tornado” (Figure 1). The
report covered nearly three columns of Page 9 and included
graphic descriptions of the storm itself, together with more
detailed accounts of the damage trail:
“A disastrous tornado, never previously equalled in its
destructive character and terrific velocity in the history of the
city and suburbs, passed over the heights of North Sydney early
yesterday afternoon. Nothing could resist its mighty force, and
substantial buildings in its comparatively narrow track collapsed
as though they were cardboard structures. Dwellings were at
one fell blow reduced to atoms, and tons of debris were carried
through the air at an enormous pace. In its relentless fury the
tornado levelled miles of fencing, displaced great hoardings,
and within the space of a few minutes left portions of a large
and prosperous district in a mass of ruin. As though struck by
some supernatural power, everything in the path of the storm
gave way. Telegraph posts were snapped like matchwood, sewer
Figure 1. The headline in Sydney on 28 March 1906. Image:
Sydney Morning Herald, 28 March 1906.
ventilating shafts were carried for considerable distances, and
bricks were wrenched out of the sides of walls and deposited
on the roofs.”
Australian Town and Country Journal, an innovative weekly
publication, carried a story on the event on the 4th of April
containing photographs of the damage that give us a hint of
the violence of the tornado (e.g. Figure 2).