source : the age
Communities lashed by severe thunderstorms and rain will receive government support to repair homes, replace lost items and find emergency accommodation as people across NSW assess the damage from three days of extreme weather.
The weather system wreaking havoc on Sydney this week will move north on Saturday, bringing an end to the torrential rains and wild winds up to 120km/h that uprooted trees, tore down power lines and ripped iron from rooftops across the city.
But the Bureau of Meteorology is still forecasting localised showers and heavy cloud cover until Sunday.
“Obviously, the rain will continue, and there’ll still be some showers around, but it’s not going to be like what we’ve seen in the last 24 hours,” said Bureau meteorologist Edward Medlock.
He said the combination of a low-pressure system offshore and a coastal trough lying off the north coast had caused persistent and heavy rainfall.
The system has weakened and moved further offshore, with most of Saturday’s rainfall expected to fall on the NSW Mid North Coast.
The NSW and federal governments on Saturday announced disaster support for Port Stephens, Maitland and Snowy Valleys communities hardest hit by the storms.
Low-income and uninsured residents will receive grants to replace lost household items and repair structural damage to homes, while eligible residents will receive support for immediate needs including finding emergency accommodation.
NSW Emergency Services Minister Jihad Dib said the natural disaster declaration allowed residents and local government to move into a “recovery phase” while the emergency response was still ongoing.
It was another busy night for the NSW State Emergency Service (SES), who responded to more than 2500 calls for help across the state.
In the Sydney metropolitan area, SES crews responded to almost 2000 calls for help on Friday into Saturday morning. The suburbs hardest hit were Sutherland (227 incidents), Bankstown (189 incidents), Ku-ring-gai (127 incidents), and Warringah (117).
SES spokesperson Andrew Edmunds said most calls were for trees fallen onto property, roads, power lines and vehicles.
Storms continued to cause carnage at Bondi Beach, where tonnes of sand had been strewn all the way up to the Bondi Pavilion.
Two women were taken to St Vincent’s Hospital on Friday afternoon with minor injuries, after a tree fell on them in Hyde Park. Awnings ripped from shopfronts onto Victoria Road in Drummoyne, which temporarily blocked traffic, and a man believed to be in his 60s was treated for minor injuries at the scene.
Edmunds said Ferndale caravan park, 100 kilometres north-west of Newcastle, had been evacuated, and SES crews were preparing to evacuate another caravan park at Laurieton, near Port Macquarie.
“We’re advising holidaymakers to steer clear of low-lying areas and waterways,” Edmunds said.
SES crews have responded to more than 6000 calls for help since the wild weather began earlier in the week, including four flood rescues in the last 24 hours.
The damaging winds followed a severe thunderstorm on Wednesday that brought widespread destruction to Sydney and left 200,000 people across NSW without power.
Around 30,000 homes were still without power in the Hunter, Nelson Bay and Central Coast regions on Saturday.
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