WA: Cyclone looks likely to hit Whim Creek pub

AAP General News (Australia)
12-15-1999
WA: Cyclone looks likely to hit Whim Creek pub

By Karen Michelmore

SYDNEY, Dec 15 AAP - Its main structure has survived, mainly alone in a ghost town,
for nearly 110 years.

It has been knocked down by past cyclones and rebuilt, mostly with the same materials.

But one of Western Australia's oldest pubs, the Whim Creek Hotel, is unlikely to survive
the wrath of Australia's most powerful cyclone.

Cyclone John hit the tiny community of Whim Creek, just inland on the north western
coast, at 9am (WST).

Whim Creek is experiencing the full force of the cyclone, with wind gusts of up to
300kph and sheets of rain expected to pound and pummel the area for up to six hours.

Around 10 staff and guests of the community's only notable building, the hotel, are
weathering the cyclone's destructive winds, cowering in a sea container.

Roebourne police acting sergeant Paul Tolan said the group was in a shipping container,
which had been secured by concrete barrels drummed into the ground.

The lone two-storey hotel is nestled beside the North West Coastal Highway linking
the major centres of Port Hedland and Karratha.

Interestingly, the legend for which the hotel is best-known, emerged from a cyclone
nearly 80 years ago.

The hotel, built in the 1890s, sits alone among rolling red and orange Pilbara hills,
with a small cemetery at its rear, a reminder of its long and colourful history.

Port Hedland teacher Fred Gorman said just three headstones remain standing in the
small cemetery, one belonging to a unionist who was murdered there during a strike in
1911.

Five witnesses and a policeman were to testify in the trial of the accused murderer
at a court in Carnarvon, 700km south of the town.

However, during the sea voyage their ship was struck by a cyclone, killing all on board.

The accused, a German man, was freed.

"He literally got away with murder," Mr Gorman told AAP.

He said he did not expect the hotel to survive the current cyclone unscathed.

"If the hotel went, that would be sad," he said.

"(But) it is very tall and also very accessible to wind gusts."

He said it was a popular stop for people travelling between the two major centres and
for tourists.

Port Hedland SES spokeswoman Gail Walley described the pub as a wonderful, historic hotel.

AAP km/tsm/rp

KEYWORD: JOHN PUB

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