By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
IN A burst of several seconds, mysterious cyclone-like westerlies reduced parts of Keysborough to a “war zone” on Wednesday night.
A fast-food outlet, homes and cars in Sylvan Avenue, Sargasso Avenue, Cheltenham Road and Parkmore shopping centre were battered by what meterologists describe as a “micro-burst” about 7pm.
During the burst, scores of scattered tiles flew from roofs in Sylvan Avenue. They clad the tarmac and pierced a car window, a home’s wall and another’s top-storey window up to 40 metres away.
“It’s fortunate it happened when there were no children outside playing in the street,” Greater Dandenong SES unit controller Paul Daniel said.
“It would have been a very dangerous situation.
“The residents were staggered at the amount of damage in such a short period of time.”
A crane was taking down a standing sign outside the nearby Fasta Pasta’s store this morning after the sign was tilted off its pole during the storm.
One of the store’s roof signs sailed 200 metres across Cheltenham Road landing outside Hungry Jack’s.
Several air conditioning systems on the store’s roof were flattened during the vicious gale.
Sylvan Avenue resident Jean Hanrahan lost a large number of roof tiles from the front and rear of her home.
She said she’d never encountered such an extreme gust that “blew through the house like a train.”
Without warning, the gust dismantled a canvas swing-chair in her backyard, and roof tiles were strewn across the avenue.
“It was like a war zone.”
A 10-metre section of resident Gwen Thompson’s back fence was sheared off its posts, sailing across the yard and wedging her clothesline against the wall of her house.
Greater Dandenong SES unit controller Paul Daniel said 20 volunteers from Greater Dandenong and Frankston units patched up 11 homes, covering roofs and windows with tarpaulins and plastic sheets.
He said the worst-hit home had lost 70 per cent of its roof tiles – some of which flew up to 40 metres away.
Mr Daniel said “substantial gums” had fallen and crushed cars in Parkmore shopping centre’s car park.
“We’ve had quite a bit of building damage work in Keysborough before – it’s like a wind tunnel down there.”
Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster Rod Dickson said a micro-burst was an intense down-draft that happened during a strong shower or thunderstorm.
It occurs on the eastern side of Port Phillip once or twice every winter, he said.
The bureau had no record of how strong the winds were; its nearest weather station at Moorabbin Airport recorded gusts of no more than 24 km/h at the time.
“It has occurred between weather stations,” Mr Dickson said.
“The thing with microbursts is they are incredibly localised phenomena spanning tens of metres or hundreds of metres.”
