Ex-Tropical Cyclone Narelle: ‘Vulnerable’ evacuees from Katherine aged care homes housed in open-sided basketball court

Frail aged care residents were forced to shelter in an open-sided basketball court in Katherine, sleeping in makeshift conditions as authorities scrambled to prepare for major river flooding triggered by ex-Tropical Cyclone Narelle. Residents from Rocky Ridge and Katherine Hostel aged care facilities were evacuated to MacFarlane primary school where many spent the night at a covered basketball court, with rain blowing into the open-sided shelter, as the deep tropical-low swept through the region. Services huddled the beds into the centre of the shelter away from the open sides to avoid residents getting wet. Later in the evening, some classrooms were opened for staff and the “more fragile” residents to sleep, but the majority spent the night in the outdoor facility. Members of the public, meanwhile, were housed in a second evacuation shelter in the fully enclosed and air-conditioned multipurpose sports centre at Katherine high school. The overwhelming majority of residents in these homes are First Nations people living with cognitive impairments and disability. At Rocky Ridge, 23 of 24 residents are Indigenous. Nursing staff told Guardian Australia the conditions were “confronting” but, after a similar evacuation a fortnight earlier, they were better prepared. “The first time we got evacuated there wasn’t even a single bed, nowhere to plug in a fan; we had to nurse our clients on the floor,” a staff member said. “This time we brought our own beds and medical equipment – everything, basically – but it was still not an ideal situation … It’s a shitty environment for these old people.” Several staff said they were distressed by the decision to house frail residents in the space, describing conditions as inappropriate for people requiring high levels of care. “The environment, to put it politely, was suboptimal,” another staff member said. Inside the shelter, staff said residents appeared discombobulated. They said the unfamiliar, unsecured setting made it difficult to keep people safe, comfortable and calm. At the Katherine high school shelter, many First Nations evacuees were ferried by police in the caged rear of paddy wagons, despite empty backseats in the dual-cab utes. It was mostly old people being transported; however, at one point a father climbed out before lifting his toddler, still strapped into a pram, out of the cage. A spokesperson for the federal minister for aged care said the evacuation had been directed under Northern Territory emergency laws, with responsibility for shelter standards resting with the Territory government. In a Facebook post, NT MLA Jo Hersey described those evacuated to MacFarlane primary school as “vulnerable residents”. The NT government said there had been no broad-scale evacuation of Katherine, but confirmed targeted evacuations were undertaken for vulnerable groups where needed. “All decisions have been guided by real time safety assessments, with the priority always being to move people quickly and safely out of harm’s way,” a spokesperson said. Many evacuees were under public guardian orders and rely on structured, high-level care. However, the NT public guardian’s office said it had not been aware of the conditions residents would be moved into. “We were informed by the aged care facility that evacuation needed to occur on Sunday 22 March 2026,” the public guardian, Beth Walker, said. “We need to make sure that disaster planning and response take into account the needs of vulnerable people. “If you or I would have been scared, then an old person with memory issues would have been very frightened.” Walker said that while the worst of the weather did not eventuate, the experience should not be dismissed. NT police have also justified transporting some people to evacuation centres in Katherine in the back of police vans, saying “to ensure timely conveyance, those who were not vulnerable were transported in police paddy wagons”. “The rear seat of general duty police vehicles were loaded with essential police equipment. Removing the equipment wasn’t feasible, as police need to maintain emergency response capacity for urgent calls.” The evacuation in Katherine comes amid growing criticism of the Northern Territory government’s handling of a series of emergency responses across remote communities this wet season. In early March, 11 residents in Palumpa had to be winched to safety after being unable to reach an airstrip before flood waters cut off access. In Jilkminggan, residents were left to self-evacuate before being staged at a shelter which lacked beds and food. Communities along the Daly River, including Nauiyu and Palumpa, were evacuated to Darwin earlier this month for a second time this wet season, after flood waters surged over the roofs of many homes. Many evacuees have spent weeks at Foskey Pavilion in Darwin, sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder on stretcher beds with little privacy. The government has since announced plans to relocate families nearly 100km out of Darwin to the Batchelor Institute, a dual-sector training college in the small community of Batchelor near Litchfield national park. The town has no shop, limited transport and remains on a “boil water” alert after recent flooding. Territory MLA for Daly, Dheran Young, said he was “appalled” by the treatment of many First Nations people during the disaster response. “Right now, people from remote communities in evacuation centres and shelters have no real agency over their own lives. It feels less like support and more like a processing centre, echoing the treatment of our people during the Stolen Generation,” he said. “Our old people deserve dignity, care and protection … They have already been through a lot. Right now they feel they have lost agency over their own lives.” Young said Daly residents had made it clear after a community meeting that they did not want to be moved to the Batchelor Institute. “Residents [were] advised there would be around 11 pods with three rooms per family, and that additional family members may be required to sleep on the floor,” he said. “Residents say these arrangements are culturally inappropriate and add to an already stressful situation.” The Northern Land Council said the response reflects broader systemic failures in how evacuations are handled across the territory, particularly for Aboriginal communities and vulnerable groups. “Adequate and consistent levels of care and accommodation must be provided to all people evacuated from their towns, communities and homelands in the NT, regardless of age and background,” chair Matthew Ryan said. The council is calling for evacuation centres to be located closer to communities, for culturally safe facilities, and for basic standards such as food, bedding and sanitation to be guaranteed.