‘Stay well away’: Wild weather to continue
Written by admin on August 29, 2024
State Emergency Service crews in New South Wales have been flat out overnight Wednesday and into Thursday morning, being called to nearly 1300 incidents as brutal winds sweep large parts of the country.
Figures released early Thursday morning by the NSW SES show the service was required at 1286 incidents on Wednesday, mostly in the state’s southeast.
Hundreds of calls for help were also made from within the wider Sydney metro area.
The volunteer group will continue to clean up 300 incidents on Thursday, a spokesperson said.
Roads in many areas of the state were cut off by fallen trees, powerlines, and dislodged parts of buildings.
The Illawarra region copped the brunt of the chaos, as roof tiles and windows were ripped from their foundations onto main thoroughfares.
Parts of a patrol station roof were blown off in Gwynneville. A window frame from the Spotlight building in Wollongong blew off and hit a pedestrian. A large gazebo landed on a vehicle at Bowral.
The Bureau of Meteorology has reissued severe weather warnings, as damaging winds are expected to redevelop in eastern and south eastern parts of NSW from Thursday night into Friday.
Winds averaging 60 to 70km/h with 90km/h gusts are possible from late Thursday evening for the Snowy Mountains. For areas above 1900 metres, damaging winds may average 80 to 90km/h with peak gusts about 125km/h.
Winds are expected to ease during Friday afternoon.
Friday morning the Illawarra and Tablelands can expect 60km/h winds with 100km/h gusts, particularly at Wollongong, Nowra, Bowral, Batemans Bay, Katoomba and Goulburn.
People should move cars to cover or away from trees, secure or put away loose items outside the house, keep away from fallen powerlines and beware that trees which may have been burnt at some stage are likely unstable.
Victorian emergency services have issued flood warnings immediately across the border due to storm surges.
The wider Gippsland region can expect abnormally high tides from Friday night and through the weekend.
Further sea water flooding with the evening high tides, particularly around low-lying coasts of the Gippsland Lakes, should be expected.
A similar threat warning issued in the past 36 hours has abated for now.
Damaging surf conditions along the South West Gippsland and exposed Central coasts have calmed on Thursday morning, but will redevelop from the early hours of Saturday and then persist until Monday.
People should stay well away from the surf and surf exposed area because of the threat of beach erosion.
In particular, exposed west and south-facing coasts between Nelson and Cape Otway and between St Andrews Beach and Wilsons Promontory are most at risk of damaging surf conditions, VicEmergency says.
Locations which may be affected by abnormally high tides include Lakes Entrance, Metung, Paynesville. Locations which may be affected by damaging surf include Warrnambool, Portland, Nelson, and southern parts of Mornington Peninsula and Phillip Island.
On Wednesday two firefighters were injured as 80 firefighters fought to save homes in Sydney’s south west, about 2pm at Horningsea Park.
About the same time in Victoria’s southwest, a man died and a woman was critically injured when a tree fell on their car.
The incident happened at Gellibrand about 1.30pm. The injured woman was flown to hospital.
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