By Tyler Wright
When Matthew Gardner put his children to bed at 5.00am on 28 October 2021, he was disturbed by the wind but eventually returned to bed.
It was soon after Matthew and his wife Nicole opened their eyes to find rafters falling through their bedroom ceiling and a tree land diagonally across the roof of their Avonsleigh home.
“We quickly grabbed the kids and darted down the other end of the house not knowing what was going on…once daylight came we were able to go outside and establish that the tree had fallen across the house, taken out our main supply line for power while also damaging the brand new master bedroom,” Matthew said.
This freak storm event on October brought wind gusts of up to 140 kilometres per hour in some areas as it moved through the state, and while the Gardners were left with damage to their home, it was also the aftermath in the months afterward that left the family frustrated.
“Because the power was live for [a] week and a half, they couldn’t attend to do the MakeSafe…they couldn’t come and remove the tree and they couldn’t come and tarp the house to protect it…
My wife and I lost our entire wardrobe because of the water damage,” Matthew said.
By 4:00pm that day, the family of five were placed in temporary accommodation 30 minutes away in Ferntree Gully on a month-to-month basis and over seven months later have recently been given the option of finding a minimum six-month rental.
“You’re having to do washing every day and run it in a dryer because you don’t have the room with five people to hang it out to air dry – and even if we were to go back into our house tomorrow with power, because it hasn’t been repaired as far as the other two bedrooms go, we’d be in exactly the same position,” Matthew said.
The insurance company handling the Gardners’ claim, RACV, has compensated the family for their damaged clothes and told the Star Mail it works to progress all claims in a timely way regardless of the volume of claims from other events.
“The claim has progressed since 4 December 2021 to date, including both initial and full assessments of the damage, removal of the tree, a ‘Make Safe’ at the property, restored electricity and a Scope of Works including revisions requested by Mr Gardner,” an RACV spokesperson said.
Now, the Gardners are awaiting permits so builders can commence work on their property and will continue to adapt as they have since last October, and their three sons aged nine, seven and five will remain at their primary school in Macclesfield and kindergarten in Avonsleigh.
“We are certainly lucky that with my mother and father in law in Wantirna, we are able to be there so still have access to a backyard and have toys at their grandparents’ they can play with…
“But definitely for the first three or four months [after the damage], when any kind of wind came up, the kids were in tears…they were worried that a tree was going to fall on our house again”.
As at 9 June 2022, RACV is waiting for Engineer & Surveyor drawings to update the Scope of Works before work can commence.
