Roofing flying through the air, windows shattering, the terror as houses disintegrated – these are the motifs woven through the stories of Tracy survivors

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In 1974, months before Cyclone Tracy flattened Darwin, Bob Leicester was working with Greg Reardon as part of a CSIRO team called Keep Your Roof On.

“We were going around capital cities and big towns to give seminars on how we should change building practices,” Leicester says.