By Margaret Maccoll
Saturday night’s storm lashed Noosa with fierce winds cutting a swathe through Eumundi, snapping 100ft tall eucalypts in half, smashing one roof and leaving debris strewn across roads and backyards.
Noosa SES local controller Warren Kuskopf said 96 calls for help were logged on Saturday night and crews were called in from Sunshine Coast, Maleny and Coolum to help.
“There were trees down on houses. Some major trees were down on roads,” he said.”Eumundi got really badly slammed. Trees were just slewed off half-way down.”
Eumundi resident Zander Skokidis said he looked out his window about 5.30-6pm on Saturday evening to see a pile of large gums trees just snap off.
Mr Skokidis said he’d lived in the area for 20 years and had never seen anything like it. “It was like a vortex,” he said.
In only 10 or 15 minutes the wind whipped through smashing anything in its path, he said. “We were lucky,” he said.
A shed that served as an office for a neighbour was blown apart with its roof left wrapped around a nearby gum tree.
Mr Kuskopf said the areas major roads, Noosa-Eumundi and Noosa-Cooroy roads were littered with fallen trees and powerlines were brought down across the area.
Powerlines were also downed on Louie Bazzo Drive at Cootharaba.
“Fortunately we didn’t have any damage from hail but there was a lot of damage from the wind,” he said.
Mr Kuskopf said crews worked through the night Saturday, all Sunday and back on Monday.
“We looked at a dozen houses. Some had minor damage to guttering. There was a whole roof destroyed and half a house demolished because of a tree coming down on it,” he said.”It would have been very distressing. They were fortunate they weren’t in that part of the house when the tree hit. There could have been some serious injuries.”
Ergon Energy crews worked across the weekend to repair powerlines and restore power to the town of Eumundi with the power switched back on Monday.
NARROW ESCAPE FOR FAMILY
One Eumundi family consider themselves lucky after several of their tall gum trees snapped off in the winds Saturday night and came crashing down around them.
Steve, Sue and son Jye were at the home where they had lived for about 20 years when the storm hit.
“It was 15 minutes, if that,” Steve said. “It was just chaotic.”
One tree fell smashing their three cars parked in their front yard. While the family’s attention was on their damaged cars they didn’t realise multiple trees had toppled in their back yard, crashing on their roof and coming through the ceiling.
“We saw the stick through the ceiling and lots of water coming in,” Sue said. “(The house) was buried in trees.”
They spent three days removing trees from the house and cars. They were happy to have an “old school” house built “cyclone proof” that withstood the damage with only the roof and ceiling to fix but saddened by the loss of the beloved Hills Hoist.
