Winds play havoc on roads

By TANIA MARTIN
GALE force winds, reaching speeds of 110kph, swept across Victoria last week keeping emergency services very busy.
Emerald State Emergency Services received 46 calls by Thursday morning, 31 of which related to fallen trees that caused havoc on roads.
SES volunteer Leigh Johnson said council workers from across the shires of Cardinia and Yarra Ranges, their contractors and SES volunteers worked tirelessly throughout the week to clear the roads.
He said during the week volunteers worked more than 60 manhours and travelled across 250 kilometres.
Mr Johnson said wind resulted in three callouts to damaged buildings, with the worst in Glenharrow Heights Road in Belgrave.
“The damage was so severe that the building required immediate attention from professional builders,” Mr Johnson said.
Emerald SES unit duty officer John Reid said that it was fortunate that there was not more calls for help.
“It was very unusual not to have had more building damage jobs, and we are all grateful for that,” Mr Reid said.
Emerald SES also had the chance to put their new wet weather gear to the test during last week’s windy and wet conditions.
Country Fire Authority region 13 Yarra Ranges was also kept busy with calls for help.
Region 13 operations manager, John Athorn said although the CFA recorded 80 callouts in a 24hour period across the region last week, it still did not compare with the storms of February.
He said the majority of the calls for help were related to power lines going down or trees falling onto local roads.
“Although a number of our brigades were busy it was not the same intensity of the February storms which we recorded in excess of 200 callouts across the region,” Mr Athorn said.