In April, Cyclone Seroja made landfall near Kalbarri, a Western Australia coastal town north of Perth. The storm had a truly deadly impact across the Indian Ocean, with as many as 229 deaths from the storm overall and a brunt of the damage hitting Indonesia. Still, the Western Australia region suffered its share through the storm with houses being smashed and plenty of devastation left behind.
“The fact that nobody died is an absolute miracle,” Ry Craike says, recalling the devastation left behind in his own hometown. “Everything else can be replaced, as hard as it is for a lot of people.”
Craike’s story makes the paradox of massive storms and surfing as clear as can be.
“As bad as that was it’s probably brought our community closer together than ever and that’s a pretty positive thing to bring out of it all,” he says.
