BLOODY HELL BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

HI Board
What a storm, dont know if it made news oversea's as we had no power for two days!!!!it was the most frighting storm I have ever seen in my life, not to bore people too much, hail stones like golf balls I know everyone in a hail storm says that!!!! this time it was true, water pouring in the house through the (burger)alarm panel !!! so thats Perth's rain for this year LOL

Premier calls for interstate SES help as storms hit country

* From: PerthNow
* March 23, 2010 10:00PM
* 215 comments

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PN NEWS LIGHTNING 650

POWER SURGE: A massive bolt of lightning targets a power pylon east of Beeliar, near Kwinana. Picture: Marc Russo Source: PerthNow
pn news storm - Major event (650x366)

Source: PerthNow
PN NEWS SUNSET AFTER STORM - Major event (650x366)

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PN NEWS STORM DAMAGE TREES - Major event (650x366)

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WA needs help from interstate emergency services agencies in the wake of Monday's destructive storm, Premier Colin Barnett says.

Mr Barnett said the WA Fire and Emergency Services Authority (FESA) had requested a total of 94 volunteers from New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia to provide welcome relief and support to the local volunteer and career crews.

More than 300 State Emergency Service volunteers, supported by career and volunteer Fire and Rescue Service and Bush Fire Service volunteers, had worked around the clock to ensure the mop up operations throughout the metropolitan area were being completed as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The Premier said 94 SES personnel were coming from New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria to provide welcome support.

They would be used to repair roof damage, cut trees, recovery of houses affected by storms and ensuring the 1000 emergency jobs throughout the metropolitan area are completed quickly.

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* Chaos as Storm Hits - part 2
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* Swamped RAC pleads for storm claim calm Perth Now, 1 day ago
* Damage bill 'hundreds of millions' Perth Now, 1 day ago
* 50,000 homes still without power Perth Now, 1 day ago
* Wild storm batters Perth Herald Sun, 1 day ago
* Storm leaves 70,000 without power Adelaide Now, 2 days ago

End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.

Electrical storms add to Western Power woes

Widespread electrical storms in the Mid-West and across the Great Southern overnight have added to Western Power's workload with thousands of customers being affected.

Lightning strikes and thunderstorms through the Geraldton, Mullewa and Dongara region knocked out power to about 1500 homes, while storms across from Narrogin and Katanning south to Albany have affected about 1200 homes.

Western Power crews have worked flat-out today to restore power to many of those homes, with 1000 homes without power at 3pm.

Western Power crews worked non-stop overnight to bring the number of homes without power across the metropolitan area since the storm down from 20,000 to 12,000 overnight.

At 6am today there were still 130 mulitple customer faults to be restored, including hazards, and 1500 single customer faults in the metropolitan area.

Power to Canning Vale, one of the worst hit areas, has been restored.

Natural disaster

After touring the worst hit public buildings including hospitals and schools yesterday, Mr Barnett said the storms were the most severe weather conditions the state had experienced since 1994, with the damage bill expected to rise into "hundreds of millions of dollars''.

“It was an extreme and very unusual, freakish event for Perth,” Mr Barnett said.

"The storm that came through Perth last night has obviously caused widespread damage.

"The extent of this was severe.

"In assessing that, the area has been declared a natural disaster, but can I stress it is very much at the lower end of that.

"We are not facing a crisis or emergency situation.

"The declaration of a natural disaster, while it is at the lower end, does allow for accessing of both State and Commonwealth funding directed at public services to make urgent repairs.

"That process will now be under way.''

Mr Barnett thanked those involved in the rescue effort.

"It has been a remarkable effort of hard work and excellent cooperation between all of the government agencies in dealing with the situation.

"A significant number of public buildings have suffered quite extensive damage.''

The Premier said thousands of people were counting the cost after Monday’s ice storm.

"Severe thunderstorms that caused damage to the Perth metropolitan area yesterday have been confirmed as eligible for disaster assistance through the Western Australia Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements (WANDRRA),” Mr Barnett said.

"All local governments within the metropolitan area and surrounding suburbs affected by the storms are eligible for the funding which will help them meet the cost of rebuilding their community assets.''

The Premier said emergency services personnel from across the State mobilised to assist affected residents with the cleanup operation throughout the metropolitan area from as far away as Kalbarri and Manjimup.

"More than 300 SES and bush fire brigade volunteers, plus career and volunteer firefighters and FESA staff, responded to thousands of calls for help across the metropolitan area since yesterday afternoon,'' he said.

"This incident is going to cost the State tens of millions of dollars to repair buildings, restore power lines but that’s what we do - that’s what government is for and all of the government agencies are there doing that work and doing all that is possible to reopen the schools ensuring the hospitals return to full operation and that life continues on.

"I am extremely proud of the many volunteers and career staff who have worked tirelessly in wet and windy conditions for the past 20 hours to help the community.''

The Insurance Council of Australia has declared a general insurance catastrophe following the severe storms in Perth.

Insurance Council of WA general manager for risk and disaster planning Karl Sullivan said 12,000 insurance claims had already been lodged.

"That will grow over time,'' Mr Sullivan said.

He urged people to be patient because call volumes were high.

The damage

University of WA is counting the cost after the massive storm smashed Winthrop Hall's iconic 80-year-old stained-glass windows and flooded the campus library.

The windows have been totally destroyed and the University faces a massive clean-up task.

More than 10 public schools have been closed due to damage.

Earlier yesterday FESA spokesman Allen Gale said about 1100 people had called for assistance in the northern suburbs.

Another 350 had called for help in the southern suburbs.

“There has been extensive infrastructure damage,” Mr Gale said.

"I’ve heard of whole porches collapsing at homes.

"There are a lot of homes that have copped fairly significant water damage.

"The damage to cars alone will be pretty major.

"Particularly, since a lot of cars aren’t covered by insurance for hail damage.''

Mr Gale called on those affected by the storms to only call the State Emergency Services for help in worst case scenarios.

"I’m sure we’ll get more calls for assistance today after the sun comes up and people assess their homes,'' Mr Gale said.

"We’re trying to encourage people to do what they can to help themselves.

"If they don’t need to call on the SES then please don’t as our resources are stretched.

"It’ll take longer to deal with the clean up the more calls we get.

"We can send a whole crew round to a house for a cracked tile.

"It’s amazing how easy something like that can be to fix if people are a little resourceful.”

A landslide near Jacob’s Ladder in Kings Park also caused major damage to two ground floor units in the Adelphi apartment block and two cars but all residents are accounted for.

Sixty eight people were relocated from neighbouring apartments to the Perth Convention Centre overnight.

Police focused on controlling traffic at major intersections where traffic lights are not working, including parts of Albany Hwy, Reid Hwy, Orrong Rd, Wanneroo Rd, Roe Hwy, Scarborough Beach Rd and Leach Hwy.

Drivers were warned to give way to their right where traffic lights are out and to expect delays.

The landslide closed the eastbound lane of Mounts Bay Rd between Winthrop Ave and Mitchell Freeway.

The State Emergency Services received more than 1200 calls for assistance.

SES volunteers from Bunbury, Kalbarri and Geraldton have been called to Perth to assist in the storm operations.

A Bureau of Meteorology spokesman said Monday's storm was one of the biggest in Perth for many years with wind gusts of more than 120km/h and 35mm of rain falling within about eight hours since 9am (12pm AEDT).

It caused widespread flooding, property damage and power cuts as it dumped big hailstones and substantial rain on the parched city.

Western Power said the storm had cut power to about 150,000 customers.

Bureau of Meteorology spokesman Mike Bergin said the event was extremely rare, but was ``probably the most signifcant storm that we've seen in the Perth metropolitan area since 1994''.

In the metropolitan area the strongest wind gust was 115km/h-117km/h reported at several sites, including Ocean Reef, which experienced a 117km/h blast about 5pm.

Of the 11 hospitals that were hit, four (Royal Perth, Sir Charles Gairdner, Swan Districts and Hollywood) closed on the code yellow internal emergency, but have since re-opened.

WA’s biggest hospital Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital had to cancel elective surgery yesterday.

Joondalup Health Campus suffered significant damage as well.

Main Roads WA reported 192 traffic lights out in the aftermath of the storm, between midnight and 1am. At 3pm there were still 60 signals out of operation.

Western Power reported up to 500 lines down, with 15 crews working 16-hour shifts to repair those lines.

About 50,000 homes were yet to have the power restored last night. The long term outage will continue for some customers for several days.

“It will take some time to fully restore power supplies,” Mr Barnett said.

“Hopefully most people will get power back today.

“For some it may be a couple of days.”

FESA reports more than 2000 calls for help.

FESA chief operations officer Craig Hynes said there had been more than 2000 calls to the SES for assistance, which had stretched resources to the same extent as the 1994 storm.




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