General News
15 February, 2024
Region hammered by Tuesday’s storm
Maryborough and surrounds were battered by one of the worst storms in recent history on Tuesday afternoon, with hundreds of fallen branches, extensive power outages and even a plane flipped on its roof. What started as a clear summer day quickly...
Maryborough and surrounds were battered by one of the worst storms in recent history on Tuesday afternoon, with hundreds of fallen branches, extensive power outages and even a plane flipped on its roof.
What started as a clear summer day quickly turned into one of destruction as high wind speeds of up to 130 km/h were recorded, rain and temperatures reaching 38 degrees lashed through Maryborough shortly after 2 pm.
So significant was the destruction left in the storm’s wake that the local SES unit was receiving one new call for assistance every 50 seconds — in excess of 70 callouts before 3.15 pm within the Maryborough township alone.
Calls to fallen trees, branches and damaged buildings were received from right across town, spanning from Derby Road to the Maryborough Golf Club.
The Maryborough SES unit worked through until 11.30 pm Tuesday night and worked through much of Wednesday to clear debris, with incident controller Darren Cooper describing this week’s storm as one of the most wide-spread the town has seen.
“The broadness of it is what really stuck out, you normally see storms like this impact pockets of town — not the whole of the town,” he said.
“This storm was everywhere, there was a massive amount of trees and branches that came down as a result and having spoken with a number of locals, this is certainly one of the worst we’ve seen.”
While clean up efforts continued once the storm front had passed, other emergency services were on high alert as two significant bushfires burnt out of control in the state’s west at Dadswells Bridge and Pomonal.
While the fires had no direct impact on the Central Goldfields, the district was blanketed in dense smoke into the early evening as a result which saw fire brigades attend a number of false alarm calls locally.
It could also be said that Maryborough saw one of its darkest nights in recent memory, with streets lit only by vehicle headlights as widespread power outages saw around 620,000 Victorian properties without electricity.
While some local properties lost power as the storm band passed through, others remained connected to the grid until later in the afternoon — almost all properties lost power until after 10 pm Tuesday night.
This was a result of trees falling and impacting local lines, energy provider AGLs Loy Yang power station going offline and in some cases, both.
While the storm’s immediate threat passed as quickly as it arrived on Tuesday, Emergency Management Commissioner Rick Nugent said it could be up to a week for some people to get their power back.
There is also a continued risk of trees falling in the district as a result of the storm disrupting root systems, with residents urged to remain vigilant.
