Maleny Hospital’s New Years Day 1963
A good example of what a tropical ‘storm’ can do was in the early hours of New Years Day 1963 when overnight rainfall measured nearly 200 mm.
Over 300 revelers were dancing the old year away at a New Year’s Eve Ball in Maleny’s School of Arts unaware a rapidly developing rain depression was crossing the Sunshine Coast bringing havoc to Buderim and Flaxton before blowing part of the roof off Maleny Hospital in the early hours of New Years Day. The tropical storm then moved on to Peachester where St Andrews Church was completely destroyed exactly 55 years after it opened (the organ donated by Queensland’s first long range weather forecaster, Inigo Jones, the stool, the Prayer Seat, the alter cross and candlesticks were recovered and are now displayed in Landsborough Historical Museum)
The Nambour Chronicle newspaper reported the roof of the 40-year-old hospital blew off at 3.00am and so began thirteen hours of anxiety for Matron O’Laherty. “Rather frightening”- was the matron’s description of the ‘turbulent night’. “I realized at once what was happening when I heard the first sheet of roofing tearing off “- she said.
“The power went off with the roof. This left the hospital’s youngest patient, a two-week-old premature baby in an un-warmed humidicrib”.
While struggling to move the hospital’s other twelve patients to the only roofed ward, Matron O’Laherty and two night sisters devised a makeshift crib with blankets and hot water bottles’.
As the 50 knot winds shattered windows and the cyclonic rain poured in through the damaged roof the matron and her staff moved their patients in pitch darkness to the hospital’s one new wing. At first light, with the help of local residents the majority of patients were moved to a temporary ‘hospital’ in Maleny’s School of Arts”.
I was talking to my neighbour – Colin – the other day and he told me he was seeing the New Year in at the Ball. The first they all knew of the disaster was when they went out into the street and saw the sheets of iron flying through the air. Colin was one of the many residents helping to remove patients to the School of Arts.