Rob Smyth

Sunday 1 July 2007

Storms Leave Us Without Power

On Wednesday a storm caused lots of damage here on Mount Dandenong. Many trees fell causing damage to half a dozen houses and the nearby school lost a building. Three or four large Mountain Ash trees (20-40 meters) fell on the tourist road between Olinda and Kalorama. We lost power from 9am on the Wednesday through to about Friday 1am.

Coming home on Wednesday night was a bit scary with roads closed. Two roads I tried were closed but I found a third dirt road which was clear. We were lucky with the only damage being from a very large Mountain Ash falling across our far rear fence. A monster of a tree that fell from the other side of the gully, has to be about 40m long. I'm getting quotes for insurance as it is going to be a lot of work to clear the fence and paths.

Next door was not so lucky with one tree falling across their driveway, over the fence, pulled down the street power lines, and blocked the road. But it only took 30 minutes to clear enough for cars to get by. Worse was a neighbor's tree falling and damaging a cottage behind their house.

Fortunately we had bought a generator a few months ago so that allowed us to at least run our gas heating and watch some TV. A good test as this area has been known to loose power for longer periods after bushfires etc. So now we know we need a bigger generator.

But hey, we live up here because we love the trees, so we cannot complain when a tree falls over the power lines.

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