Backyard fencing and garage roller doors are just a few of the victims of last night’s (December 20) storm.
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Gloucester residents had to batten down the hatches as a storm cell swept across the region bringing with it a path of destruction.
Tim Threadgate posted a photo of his damaged backyard fence on Facebook, while Hugh Dougherty posted a video of the storm as it was hitting his home.
Hugh said the wind blew one of the roller doors on his garage in, causing it to bang against his wife’s car all night.
Many residents lost power and while some has been restored, it may be some time before everyone is back online due to the sheer volume of outages across the region.
Essential Energy has crews out assessing power outages across its network in the North Coast area with about 24,000 customers still without power as at 10.30am on Friday December 21.
“Additional Essential Energy crews from outside the region are on their way to help with rectification works. Helicopters will be taking to the air shortly to assist with assessing and repairing damage.”
Billabong Park is just one of the areas in town to be littered with fallen trees and debris from the strong winds. Green waste from debris like fallen trees on council land may be left until the new year with council focusing on clearing the large amount of roadways which have become blocked.
“Last night’s storm event caused widespread damage across the Mid Coast area, particularly in terms of trees down over roads,” a representative from council said.
“The main focus for council crews today (Friday December 21) will be making roads safe for the community, with trees and branches being removed from roads to make them passable. A full clean-up will come after the Christmas break.”
Council will be on break from close of business Friday December 21 until Wednesday January 2.
Emergency crews from NSW SES, RFS, MidCoast Council and Fire and Rescue had a busy night with call outs to a range of incidents.
NSW RFS Mid Coast district officer, Stuart Robb said calls started coming in at around 7.30pm and continued for about two hours.
“We had 48 jobs from Bulahdelah to Port Macquarie overnight,” Stuart said. “We had 20 units supporting the SES and Fire and Rescue.”
The call outs included storm damage to property, powerlines down, motor vehicle accidents, verandahs collapsing and roofs being blown off.
Essential Energy warns that customers should not attempt to clear any fallen trees at this early stage and are reminded to stay at least eight metres away from any damaged powerlines or equipment and report to Essential Energy on 13 20 80.
Essential Energy thanks customers for their patience as its crews work safely and quickly as possible to restore power to all customers as soon as possible.
For updates on the power outages, visit www.essentialenergy.com.au/outages-and-faults/power-outages