Blackie the dog, who helped the Karamanakis family escape their home just minutes before Cyclone Tracy hit, will always be remembered as a hero.

Fay Karamanakis was feeling pretty relaxed at the start of the night on December 24, 1974.

"All the years we were struggling to build a house and that particular year we had just finished our house. I felt really good because all my years as a child I never really had much," she recounted recently.

Sitting in her chair, Ms Karamanakis remembered when the rain began to fall more heavily. She brought her sister's dog Blackie, a labrador-cross, in from the cold.

"He was scratching the window and really sort of yelping - 'let me in' sort of thing," she said.

"When I opened the door ... I had the towel to dry Blackie because he was wet."

But Blackie was not interested in keeping dry.

He rushed to where Ms Karamanakis' daughter Sylvia was asleep in her cot.

"He pulled the sheets off the baby, tried to pull the baby, knocking the baby's head on the cot," Ms Karamanakis said.

"I was screaming at the dog 'how dare you!'.

"The next thing the dog saw that I was holding the baby, so he ran off and went into the other room to where Katie was sleeping."

Blackie then grabbed Ms Karamanakis' other daughter's sheets and dragged her down to the ground.

Ms Karamanakis could not understand the dog's behaviour, and picked him up by the scruff of the neck and dumped him outside, while she consoled her two children.

"I was so devastated because this dog I thought was naughty," she said.

Not long afterwards her husband returned to the home and also took pity on the dog that was still yelping outside. He brought Blackie back into the house.

"He [Blackie] was looking at me in a funny way, trying to talk to me," Ms Karamanakis said.

"The dog was actually trying to talk to me," she said, more emphatically.

Blackie's bizarre behaviour did not stop there.

"The dog grabbed me ever so gently by my skirt and was sort of pulling me and in the meantime, watching me in the eyes, telling me to get out with the kids," she said.

"He saw me pick up the baby and walk out the door and he ran to my husband, grabbed his pants while he was holding Katie, and was dragging him to the door to try and make him get out.

"As soon as we got out the dog ran after us."

With the winds picking up and rain pelting down, her family raced to a granny flat underneath the home while Blackie hid under a car.

There they met up with some guests staying with them, but they barely had time to get settled when they heard a sound Ms Karamanakis will never forget.

"When you hear the cyclone hitting, the whole house coming down and you are underneath the house - it is only floorboards - the noise is magnified," she said.

Fay Karamanakis still lives in the house where she sheltered during Cyclone Tracy in 1974. ( ABC News: James Purtill )

The cyclone caused water to flood into the area where she was staying, while her husband put a mattress near the window to stop glass and debris from flying in.

"I had the baby against my chest, the four-month-old baby, so that it could be warm because we were sitting in water all night and holding the heads up so they don't have to drink that water," she said.

"We were praying. We thought we were going to die and we were trying to scheme a way to save the kids."

Her family did survive, as did Blackie, but the house was completely destroyed.

After the debris cleared, a caravan was sitting where her home had been.

The next day the family, along with other survivors, were directed to a shelter at a school in the suburb of Wagaman.

Unbeknownst to her family Blackie had come from his hiding place and followed their car.

"I walked in with two kids in the front of the Wagaman School," she said.

"I will never forget this as long as I will live," she said, looking away with obvious pain in her eyes.

"All I could hear was a bang," she said, moving her hands for emphasis.

"When you get the shock of a gun going off, I just turned to see my dog going down.

"I fricken screamed.

"I went to the dog..." she said, her voice trailing off.

The police had shot her dog, and many other dogs, because of fears the animals could have spread disease or feasted on dead bodies.

Since Cyclone Tracy, Ms Karamanakis does not care so much about material goods, and feels a stronger bond with her family.

"I feel that since then I have wanted to give a lot more to people than to take," she said.

"It just makes you re-evaluate life as you once saw it."

She said she still remembers Blackie, even 40 years since he briefly was part of her life, and she always fears another cyclone will come.

"I really fret at night sometimes. I just really can't handle the winds," she said.