On Tuesday evening, people in South Gippsland expected a regular thunderstorm as a heavy and dark cloud blanketed the region, but the reality was much more horrific.
Hail bucketed the region and strong winds savaged townships and bushland, destroying houses and tearing down trees.
The storm killed a 50-year-old dairy farmer in Darlimurla who was riding a quad bike while moving cattle when he and several cows were hit about 6pm.
In a neighbouring town, Mirboo North, locals united to help clear debris and provide support as tens of houses had their roofs torn off.
Mirboo North resident Rob Waycott can no longer live in his house after a tree fell on his roof, tearing through it.
“There are holes in the roof … caused by the enormous tree behind me that came down, which I didn’t even notice because of the noise of the [storm],” he said.
“What caused this? Having lived here close to 40 years, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Towns isolated
A spokesperson from the Bureau of Meteorology said the atmospheric environment on Tuesday produced the severe thunderstorms over West, South and East Gippsland.
“This included warm conditions, ample amounts of atmospheric moisture and enough wind shear [so] that thunderstorm became relatively organised and had a particular vertical structure,” the spokesperson said.
Cut off from electricity and telecommunication networks, Mirboo North locals were left isolated, unable to contact others or access important information.
“I couldn’t tell you what’s happened elsewhere because media coverage, internet coverage is non-existent,” Mr Waycott said.
Nearby, Andy McCarthy considers himself lucky as he watched bulldozers demolish his neighbour’s house only metres away from his own.
The windows of his home were shattered, and his fence collapsed after the “violent” storm event, which he said lasted between five and 10 minutes.
“Fifteen or 20 of my friends have either lost their house completely or lost their whole roof, or part of their house has caved in,” Mr McCarthy said.
Mr McCarthy was at the town’s recreation reserve when the storm hit, showering the region with hail.
“And then we raced to our car … and as soon as I got to the car, it was like someone had tipped a bucket of hail on us. It was terrifying,” he said.
“And I could hear trees falling all around me, but I couldn’t move [the car] because I couldn’t see a meter in front of me.
“It felt like the glass was going to be sucked out of the windscreen. I probably haven’t been that scared before.”
Mr McCarthy said the goalposts at the reserve had snapped in half, and hundreds of trees had fallen down on the golf course.
Other community facilities were also damaged, including the local pool, which had only recently reopened.
“Our beautifully refurbished pool that we just rebuilt through a whole bunch of community spirit … all the trees just collapsed into the pool and damaged all the buildings,” Mr McCarthy said.
“The whole place is just a bit of a war zone.”
Calls for government support
Member for Gippsland South Danny O’Brien said it was “absolutely heartbreaking” to see the damage to houses and community facilities and more support was needed.
“We’re going to need assistance with this clean-up and I think state and federal governments need to be aware of that,”
“There’s serious damage here. There’s a lot of debris, a lot of trees down, hundreds and hundreds of trees.”
South Gippsland Shire Council’s chief executive Kerryn Ellis said an emergency centre was set to open by Thursday afternoon in Mirboo North once a reliable power supply could be established.
“That will be a contact point for people in terms of their various options for support, including food,” she said.
“There’s also food support available through the state government as well … people can contact the SES.”
The council also visited local hospitals and said they were continuing to operate using power generators.
“They’re managing at the moment,” Ms Ellis said.
“One of the bigger issues for them is their staff getting into work when we’ve got limited petrol availability around the shire.”
Further east in South Gippsland, Yarram saw wind gusts reach 126 kilometres per hour, destroying some buildings.
Yarram locals said the storm felt like a hurricane. The nearby supermarket was disposing of its refrigerated food due to the loss of power.
Yarram Neighbourhood House coordinator Cathy Cook said the building was acting as an emergency response centre and checking in on people.
“We’ve got a vulnerable persons’ list that we’ve been looking at,” she said.
“We’ll send people out to make sure that people on that vulnerable persons’ list are okay.”
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