THE DAY I WILL NEVER FORGET – KATE HABERFIELD (NBN SPORT REPORTER/PRESENTER)
Ask anyone who knows me at all, and they’ll tell you I have a patchy memory, at best. I can remember all manner of insignificant things (mainly sports scores) but I can’t tell you who I went to school with, what I did last week or where I put my passport. The day I do remember, in vivid detail, is December 28 1989. 10.27am. My mum had taken my sister and I to her friend’s Merewether unit to get our haircut. We were in her kitchen of the top floor unit when the earth shook. My mum and her friend looked out the window. They saw a large puff of smoke. They didn’t know it at the time, but that was the Workers Club. We quickly got out of the building. We walked down the internal stairs. Huge cracks cascaded down the wall of the staircase. They were jagged and wide enough to stick my skinny, almost six year old arm, through. We stood in the middle of the road, wondering what to do next. The radio wasn’t working. It was as if the world fell silent. Then, after five or so minutes, we heard sirens. In the panic, I had left my prized cabbage patch doll upstairs in the unit. Santa had given it to me for Christmas just three days earlier. I wanted to go back and get it. I wasn’t allowed.
Eventually we got into mum’s car and headed back to our unit in Lambton. But we couldn’t get home. Our street was blocked by police tape. It was a disaster zone. We were forced to wait in the park next to Lambton High School. It was hot. There were no mobile phones. Who knows how long we were there. Somehow my grandad managed to find us. He used to be the station manager of a local fire station. He talked his way into our street to survey the damage. Our unit, which was in a block of four, was very badly damaged. The driveway, where we had been riding our bikes just hours earlier, was completely covered in bricks. My grandad got my mum into the barely standing unit to grab whatever she could. She dumped whole drawers into the boot of her car.
We didn’t have much back then and I remember thinking “but what about my Christmas presents”. She didn’t have time to get them.
We were among the 1,000 people made homeless that day. The months that followed were tough. We lived out of the boot of mum’s car. We were separated while we stayed with relatives and friends. It was traumatic for a five year old girl and her wide eyed little sister. But I know we were some of the lucky ones. It could’ve been so much worse.
I got my cabbage patch doll back. Our unit was eventually rebuilt. The memory and trauma of that day will never leave.
WHEN THE PENNY FINALLY DROPPED – BLAKE DOYLE (NBN HEAD OF NEWS)
10.27am – December 28,1989.
The Tourle Steet bridge, heading towards Kooragang Island. I was behind the wheel of my trusty but rusty Toyota Corrolla. It was a classic uni student car, what you might call a “shitbox”. Not even a working radio.
I was heading to Stockton with a mate for a surf. No roofacks, so Matty was in the back seat with the boards stacked on the front passenger seat. We got halfway across the bridge when the Nelson Bay bus just went past heading into town. Immediately after the bus passed, my car seemed to veer onto the other side of the road. A bit like when you pass a big truck in the oncoming direction and get caught in its slipstream. But this was more and the old Corolla was all over the place.
We got onto Kooragang Island and there were a few cars pulled over on the side of the road. Nothing unusual though. What was different, was a cloud of thick red dust floating out of BHP. Looking back, the old girl had been given a great shake. Still oblivious. I’m betting the conversation with Matty was around anticipation of waves, or music, or both.
Stockton Bridge was another thing. I noticed a line on the road ahead of me as I approached the bridge. The Corolla crossed that line where the bridge meets the road. It was a gaping wound. The Corolla bottomed out with a giant thud. I’m sure it shook the rust out. I looked around at Matty and shook my head. Onward we went over the bridge. Still nothing.
The beach offered nothing, zilch. The nor’ easter got into it early so we were faced with half-a-metre of slop and a drive back into town with our tails between our legs. A snap decision was made to visit our mate Geoff in Stocko. On the way it seemed like every second person was out of their house chatting with their neighbor. Stocko is a tight community, but this was on another level.
It all unravelled at Geoff’s. Geoff lived pretty much on the river, with BHP across the water. His fish tank water was everywhere and his old man was laying bets on an explosion or a quake, and commenting “big harry’s on fire.”
It wasn’t long before the choppers were hovering over the city and the penny finally dropped.
SHAKEN AND STIRRED ON THE BANKS OF THROSBY CREEK- STEPHEN MOUNT- (NBN JOURNALIST/PRESENTER)
On the day of the earthquake I was a 15-year-old roped into working for our family transport company as employees enjoyed their Christmas break.
Back in 1989, the site now known as Newcastle City Kia was the location of Comet transport. There was a large warehouse style building on the banks of Throsby Creek where freight was loaded onto trucks for distribution throughout the region.
At 10.27am the building began to shake, quite violently back and forth. I recall the straining sound of steel beams under pressure as dust and rust fell from above. Everyone was looking around thinking a truck had backed into the building. And then came the bang and a jolt from underneath – enough to throw us off balance. It sounded like a massive explosion and the ground rolled like a wave.
Everyone just stood in silence. Seconds felt like minutes before a man with an American accent started screaming at us all to get out. I distinctly remember his words;
“Is everyone alright? Get out, get out, it’s a f…… earthquake!”.
Of course, everyone in the building thought he had lost the plot.
“I’m from San Francisco, I know what a f…. earthquake is, that was an earthquake, get out.”
Everyone froze before some nervous laughter broke out. For a minute or so there was an eerie silence before the noise of sirens and helicopters drowned the city. The quake caused a blackout, so the truck radio was our only communication to the outside world as we started flipping between 2HD, 2KO and 2NX – by then the announcers kicked into emergency broadcasting.
There were no mobile phones back then so we found the nearest phone box to see if everyone back home was ok. Thankfully, the only sign of an earthquake at Tea Gardens Hawks Nest was a shaking fence and some rattling china. Most people thought it was caused by RAAF jets breaking the sound barrier!
10.27am on the 28th of December 1989 is etched in my mind forever. When we have a rare quiet weekend I often get lost in the archives, learning from the past and looking for ideas to integrate old techniques into the new way we tell stories.
The earthquake coverage is my default inspiration. In my humble opinion, it remains one of NBN’s most defining moments. Stuart Osland’s work behind the lens was nothing short of brilliant. He not only captured the moment but had the wisdom to know he and Ross Hampton were in the middle of the biggest story in Newcastle’s history. It remains one of the most captivating pieces of television I’ve ever seen as an industry veteran’s instincts kick in.
But to come from a different perspective, for me it’s also a reminder of the contribution NBN’s news crews made to our region. 30 years on we’re able to remember the 28th of
December 1989 like it was yesterday. But most importantly, that day will never be lost in history as we honour the 13 lives lost on the day that changed Newcastle forever.
MY DAY BEHIND THE LENS – ANDREW LOBB (NBN NEWS CHIEF OF STAFF)
I was working as a news cameraman with sports reporter Darren Curtis and our news car was crossing the Selwyn Street Bridge, heading north on the Industrial Highway when we felt a rumble and sway. (Much later I thought our day could have ended then if that bridge didn’t hold up.)
Further up towards Mayfield East, people were coming out to their front yards, looking about, dust was rising, houses were damaged.
Our two way radio crackled to life and News Chief of Staff, Geoff Greaves,directed us to the heliport to meet NBN chopper pilot Clive Lipscombe.
Strapped in and standing on the skid, you get a great view of everything around and at first, from the air, things looked calm and quiet.
Down below, a lone fire truck was heading toward town, not much other traffic was moving.
Then Hamilton, piles of bricks strewn into Beaumont Street, groups of people were working to clear debris around fallen awnings.
Over Islington then Tighes Hill with the TAFE on fire and BHP venting then into town where the roof of the Newcastle Workers Club had collapsed.
Back on the ground and after a quick call to check on loved ones, we’d spend the rest of the day filming the desperate and heroic rescue efforts at the Workers Club, emergency workers pausing only briefly for aftershock alerts.
IV drips were suspended from lines slung between trees on the median strip on King Street where the injured were stretchered from the rubble.
I still see that now, every time I go by.
By afternoon, national and overseas news teams were setting up satellite dishes on King Street, Prime Minister Bob Hawke arrived to inspect the scene.
Late that night, I drove home through army road blocks and deserted streets.
WHEN THE EARTHQUAKE STRUCK – TYSON COTTRILL – (NBN JOURNALIST/PRESENTER)
“Hurry up, get outside! Now!”
I can still hear my mum’s screams – even to this day.
I didn’t exactly know why at the time, but I could tell by her voice that something was wrong.
I was barely four years old when the Newcastle earthquake struck. Remarkably, I still remember it – and I can still feel it.
That morning I was at home with my family at Adamstown Heights. Mum and Dad were upstairs in the kitchen and I was downstairs in the loungeroom with my two older brothers.
Owen was on the computer, Garth was watching TV, and I was nearby looking a book I’d been given for Christmas
All of a sudden I stopped, and looked up. Then it happened.
First came a low rumbling noise, followed by the sound of things smashing upstairs – then the earth shook. It’s difficult to put into words the feeling, but it was as if a wave was rolling under our house – and that’s exactly what I pictured in my head at the time.
Mum and Dad must have flown down the stairs because just seconds after yelling for us to get outside – my parents were by my side. They later told me the first thing that came into their minds when they realised it was an earthquake was that our house would collapse – and they knew my two brothers and I were all downstairs.
The next thing I remember is standing out the front of my house, holding my dad’s hand. I looked to the left, then to the right. All I could see were my neighbours lining the street. No one really knew what was happening. There was no electricity, no mobile phones. Someone, I can’t remember who, jumped in a car and turned on the radio. Then they knew for certain what had happened.
All of a sudden I spotted my grandparents driving up the street. I let go of my Dad’s hand and rushed towards them. I later learnt they’d been shopping at nearby Kotara Fair, now known as Westfield Kotara, and had been evacuated from David Jones when the quake struck. I didn’t know that at the time. I was just happy to see them.
What I heard next is a sound I’ll never forget. The sound of sirens. It lasted for what felt like minutes, until finally it faded. It wasn’t until a few years later that I put two and two together – and the realisation sent shivers down my spine. Those sirens were of the brave emergency services – all heading one way – into town. We all know what they saw when they arrived. I can only imagine what they felt.
That night we stayed at my grandparents place. I remember my brother Owen couldn’t sleep. He was worried the earthquake was going to happen again.
In the end, our house suffered only minor damage – just the odd cracked wall, but certainly nothing major.
Every now and then something triggers a memory of that morning – not only of what happened – but how very lucky my family was. Something we’re thankful for – even 30 years on.
