• City of Darwin is progressing through its initial three-month cyclone recovery phase, focused on the municipality's highest-risk and highly used areas. 

• While this initial phase is focused on priority areas, the full completion of all clean-up activities across the municipality - particularly residential verges and lower-priority areas - will continue beyond this period. 

• The community are acknowledged for their patience as more than 200 workers support the recovery efforts. 

As City of Darwin nears the end of its third week of clean-up and recovery since Cyclone Fina threatened the City on Saturday 22 November, the community is asked to remain cautious and alert to damaged trees and taped-off areas across the municipality.  

Community safety remains City of Darwin’s priority as recovery efforts progress. 
 
In less than three weeks, arboriculture assessments alone have identified more than 4,500 trees requiring works across the municipality; around 3,000 of those require significant pruning and over 1,000 need to be removed. 

Throughout the period, a combination of more than 200 City of Darwin staff and contractors have been activated, spanning specialist areas such as arboriculture, civil works, building, electrical, labouring, plant operation, and traffic control, including a significant, rediverted administrative team of City of Darwin staff managing logistics, customer requests, insurance processes, and contractor delivery from an Emergency Operations Centre. 

Phase One: Initial Three-Month Recovery 

City of Darwin’s dedicated recovery team are working at full capacity to assess and restore essential services during this initial phase, focused on the highest-risk and highest-use areas, clearing fallen trees and debris from priority areas including:  

• Roads 

• Walkways 

• Parks 

• Ovals 

• Open spaces 

It is important to note that progress is also highly weather dependent during this phase, with recent storms causing additional trees to fall, some in locations that had already been cleared, requiring reassessment and contributing to delays. Crews are working continuously while monitoring the evolving forecast to ensure work is undertaken safely. 

Phase Two: Recovery  

Once City of Darwin’s dedicated team are confident that these priority areas are safe and operational for the community, wider recovery work will commence. This second phase will be prioritised as follows: 

• Final clearing of verges 

• Mowing grass on verges, ovals, parks and reserves 

• Infrastructure repairs  

Community Guidance 

• Hidden Valley remains open to the community for free, emergency green waste disposal until Sunday 21 December. 

• Shoal Bay Waste Management Facility is open for general waste only. The site will reopen for residential green waste from Monday 22 December. 

• Ovals, parks and reserves remain closed until further notice 

• Some restricted opening for sports clubs has commenced at Gardens, Nightcliff, Jingili, Kahlin and Fannie Bay, but they remain closed to the general public.  

Lord Mayor Peter Styles has thanked the community for their contributions to the clean-up and asked for continued patience as recovery work continues over the coming months. 

“Recovering from an event of this scale is a huge undertaking and it’s important that we are transparent with our recovery outlook. We want to manage expectations as we move into the wet season and the holiday period,” he said.  

“It’s important to understand that a city doesn’t quickly go back to how it was before a cyclone. The recovery can take many months, if not longer, to rebuild and restore our green spaces and tree canopy, and this will be supported through our long-term greening strategy,” he said. 

“Our teams are working in extreme heat and humidity, often in challenging and hazardous conditions. The scale of this work is significant, and we ask the community for understanding as recovery continues, and patience as regular maintenance across the municipality may also be affected during this period,” he added.  

Community Guidance: Facilities 

Open facilities:  

• Community Centres – Nightcliff, Malak 

• Pools – Casuarina, Parap and Nightcliff 

• Civic Centre 

• Libraries  

• Carparks - West Lane and Dragonfly  

• Pound 

• Reviva Reuse Shop at Shoal Bay 

• Public toilets (excluding Alawa Oval public toilets) 

• Childcare centres 

• Darwin General Cemetery  

• Some restricted opening for sports clubs has commenced at Ovals including Gardens, Nightcliff, Jingili, Kahlin and Fannie Bay, but remain closed to the general public.    

Closed until further notice 

• Ovals, Parks & Reserves (outside of those stated above with restricted access) 

• Community Centres – Lyons (fallen tree on roof requiring repair)  

• Cemeteries (outside of those stated above) 

• Walkways 

Community Guidance: Waste management

General Waste 

Shoal Bay Waste Management Facility is open for general waste only (no green waste).   
It will reopen for residential green waste from 22 December. 
 
Recycling and general waste kerbside bin collections are operating as normal; however, some delays may occur while we manage increased demand and navigate road closures.   

Green Waste 

Residents can continue to take their green waste to a free, alternative emergency waste management site at Hidden Valley between 7:00 am and 6:00 pm daily until Sunday 21 December.