This Pakenham Upper home took a battering after severe winds lashed the south-east over the weekend.By Jade Lawton and Kelly Yates
WILD winds and rain caused havoc across the south-east on the weekend, with local State Emergency Service volunteers among the busiest in the state.
The Victorian SES attended 880 call-outs across Metropolitan Melbourne, with the highest number of calls going to Narre Warren, with 130, Emerald with 103, and Pakenham, who attended 64 call-outs.
Narre Warren SES controller Brett Reddy praised the 32 members who worked from midnight on Saturday through to 2am on Monday, mainly being called out to damaged buildings, roofs missing tiles and trees that had fallen on homes and roads.
Narre Warren North resident Jack Rae lost two thirds of his roof during the fierce weather.
The 81-year-old, who wasn’t at home at the time, returned to his A’Beckett Road property on Sunday to find most of his roof scattered around the property and along the main road.
“It was still windy when we got home so all we could do was sit tight and wait until the wind passed,” he said.
It took local SES crews about four hours to tarp the roof at Mr Rae’s home.
Mr Rae said he was fortunate there was only damage to the roof.
“I feel thankful that it was only the roof of the house,” he said.
“The actual structure of building never suffered at all and no personal items were damaged.”
Pakenham SES spokesman Shayne Honey said the storm’s impact pushed local SES units to their maximum potential.
“This highlights the engineering aspect of their training, the skill required to remove a three-tonne tree from a house without doing more damage to only one aspect of the SES, it’s knowing how to do it when you are faced with wind gusts of up to 100 km/h that’s the challenge,” he said.
“Houses were destroyed; cars crushed under falling trees, flooding and road ways blocked as severe winds battered Casey and Cardinia from 9pm.”
Local emergencies included a serious car crash in Cockatoo, where a 16-year-old learner driver lost control of a Daewoo wagon on Woori Yallock Road, ending up in Cockatoo Creek just before 8.30pm on Sunday.
His father, a 45-year-old Healesville man that was in the front seat at the time of the collision, was placed in to an induced coma and airlifted to The Alfred hospital with serious head injuries.
The 16-year-old, also from Healesville, briefly lost consciousness but was taken to Dandenong Hospital in a stable condition.
Senior Sergeant Alan McCarthy, of Pakenham Police, said police were still investigating the cause of the crash but it was important for motorists to drive according to weather conditions.
“It is sensible to do under the speed limit in weather conditions like that,” he said.
Sen Sgt McCarthy also thanked residents of Gembrook Road, Gembrook, who assisted police in removing a tree that fell across the road in the early hours of Sunday morning.
“The public came to help with chainsaws while SES crews were still on their way,” he said.
The strongest winds recorded in Victoria on Sunday were 133km/h at Mt William and 98km/h at the Melbourne Airport.
