Thousands of residents were faced with outages in the South Australian town of Port Pirie after a severe thunderstorm and hail destroyed roofs as well as bringing down trees and powerlines.
The State Emergency Services (SES) said they received 170 calls for help in 12 hours after wind gusts of 119 kilometres per hour were recorded in the town after 8pm on Saturday.
SES acting chief officer Kirsty Phelps said the organisation was taken by surprise but has since deployed 165 volunteers to the Mid North town in response to about 350 call-outs.
“This is the most significant storm event we’ve had in the Port Pirie region on record,”
she said.
Peter Malinauskas says wind speeds spiked in Port Pirie between 8pm and 9pm on Saturday. (ABC News: Bridget Herrmann)
SA Premier Peter Malinauskas said the “severe storm cell” accompanied by a large quantity of hail was “sudden” and “not anticipated by the Bureau of Meteorology”.
“This was a severe storm, it is a demonstration that mother nature can be very unpredictable,” Mr Malinauskas said.
“We saw wind gusts of up to 120 km/h spiked then very quickly turned back to normal levels.”
He said at least two houses had “substantial damage” but the majority of wreckage was caused by fallen trees.
SA Power Networks external affairs manager Cecilia Schutz said a strong and short storm cell caused significant damage, bringing down up to 50 power lines in and around Port Pirie.
At its peak, about 4,900 households were without power.
Large trees brought down power lines at Port Pirie on Saturday. (Supplied: SA Power Networks)
“We had over a dozen poles and associated infrastructure either pushed over or completely brought out off the ground,” Ms Schutz said.
“To give some perspective, these are the kind of figures and the level of damage you would expect to see on the network at a statewide level during a prolonged weather event.
“So this is an hour in the Port Pirie area, a very high level of damage … a level of damage we didn’t predict.”
Ms Schutz said 72 SA Power Networks crews as well as contractors were on the ground working on restoring power, with the majority expected to have lights back on Sunday night.
The storm cell seen from Port Germein, 27km north of Port Pirie. (Supplied: Brenda Barkla)
A Bureau of Meteorology spokesperson said they first communicated the risk of possible thunderstorm in the forecast for Port Pirie on Saturday morning.
It later issued two severe thunderstorm warnings at 7:14pm and 8:11pm on Saturday.
“Observations from the Port Pirie Airport AWS [automatic weather station] show wind gusts started increasing from 8:09pm peaking at 119 km/h between 8:18-8:24pm. 15 mm of rain was recorded in 20 minutes,” a Bureau spokesperson said.
“While the Bureau can analyse and predict when the atmosphere is likely to produce severe thunderstorms, the rapidly changing nature of thunderstorms makes it difficult to forecast their exact location with long lead times, which is why the Bureau supports targeted warnings with localised forecasts, briefings and public information in the hours and days leading up to an expected severe weather event.”
The ceiling collapsed at Angela Lewis’s house at Port Pirie after a severe thunderstorm on Saturday. (Supplied: Angela Lewis)
Woman’s lucky escape
Port Pirie resident Angela Lewis said her ceiling almost fell on her when she went to inspect the damage overnight.
“My hubby went out with a torch because all the power went out and he could hear water running and he looked up … and it was coming through the ceiling all around the light fittings,” Ms Lewis said.
“We went out and we saw all in our back room was in ankle deep water.
“I was still trying to take some photos, luckily I took a step back to get a long shot and the ceiling collapsed so it just missed me. It missed me by about a foot.”
Water leaked through Angela Lewis’s home after a severe storm. (Supplied: Angela Lewis)
Ms Lewis said her kitchen, dining room, an entertaining room and a shed were destroyed in the storm, which happened within “10, 15 minutes”.
“All the back section of our house is unusable,” she said.
“The wind was that hard it took the paint off my outdoor setting … we went out this morning to check the damage we had white flecks everywhere.”
Angela Lewis says her shed was also destroyed in the storm. (Supplied: Angela Lewis)
She said the damage was extensive around Port Pirie.
“Emergency services have closed off the street because there’s trees down in our street,” she said.
“The hail was unbelievable … my husband walking into it, it was up to his ankles.”
Alivia Dunbar’s house was badly damaged in the storm at Port Pirie on Saturday. (Supplied: Alivia Dunbar)
Another resident, Alivia Dunbar, also had her ceiling collapse, sending “icy water” onto her floors and hallway.
“It came through one of the downlights, then the plasterboard just split along one of the seams and it just started pouring out of the plasterboard,” Ms Dunbar said.
“And then it just got worse, it just broke open.
“That’s when the whole house basically got flooded all down through the kitchen, and it went underneath the wall into the dining area.
“Overnight I’d be trying to sleep and I could hear bang, more of the ceiling had collapsed.”
She said she had seen several friends and photos from other residents with broken ceilings.
“It’s probably the worst storm we’ve ever seen here, it come out of nowhere but it was fierce,” Ms Dunbar said.
Hail reported around Port Pirie during a severe thunderstorm on Saturday night. (Supplied: Michelle Waters)
Earlier on Sunday, SES state duty officer Ian Bonython said they had requested support from their metropolitan volunteers as well as from the Country and Metropolitan Fire Services as the calls for assistance overnight poured in.
“The warning from the Bureau of Meteorology did say it was going to be strong winds and damaging winds so we were expecting it, but not as heavy and not as many taskings as what we did receive,” Mr Bonython said.
“The majority of the taskings we attended to last night were wind-related so loose roofing, tree branches and the SA Power Networks were attending to powerlines down.
“We also had water-related tasks where water was entering through the ceilings and rising up in people’s back and front yards.”
Council holds emergency meeting
On Sunday, Port Pirie Mayor Leon Stephens urged residents to stay home.
“There are lots of power lines and poles that are bent,” he said.
“On that topic, please stay home, clean up your place and free the roads up; they are a little but too congested at the moment for the amount of work that we have to do.”
Leon Stephens says the Port Pirie council is holding an emergency meeting to deal with the storm clean up. (ABC News: Che Chorley)
He said residents could bring their green waste to a waste transfer station, but restoring power was the priority.
“We’ve got an emergency management meeting that will happen today with our staff. We’ve also got the emergency services minister on the way down as well to see if there’s anything we can bring together,” he said.
“Any trees that you’ve got on council land or verges, don’t panic too much, as long as your access is OK, we’ll come around and get all that stuff cleaned up.”
Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Jenny Horvat said thunderstorms moved from west to east across South Australia on Saturday but temperatures across the state would warm up on Sunday.
Port Pirie residents experienced hail during a severe storm on Saturday night. (Supplied: Shamus Hawthorn)
“We did also see some severe thunderstorms around the Port Pirie area last night,” Ms Horvat said.
“It is spring, we do expect to see these dynamic troughs and lows moving across the state at this time of year.”
She said the heaviest rainfall was around the Adelaide metropolitan area, receiving about 20 to 40 millimetres overnight.
“West Terrace picked up 25mm of rain — that’s been our wettest day since July here in the city, and for November we haven’t seen rainfall in that range for a couple of years there.”