The Avon Valley experienced strong gusty winds last weekend that caused multiple roads to be shut in the area due to tree branches blocking the way.
Northam State Emergency Services manager Sarge Bottacin said they received a call out on Saturday morning to a farm quarters in Throssell that lost part of its roof.
“We put tarping on the roof for them,” he said.
“In most cases on the weekend, people did their own repairs.
“That incident was the most severe – we got off lightly.”
Northam Shire executive manager of engineering services Clinton Kleynhans said the calls started for the Shire at 2.30am on Saturday morning to clear roads.
“Most of the call outs were for fallen trees around the Northam town site and the Grass Valley townsite,” he said.
It is our priority to make the roads safe and act quickly
- Northam Shire executive manager of engineering services Clinton Kleynhans
“We had four crews out through the night and at 7.30am new crews took over.
”Works finished around 4pm on Sunday afternoon.”
He said about nine workers were needed over the weekend.
“It is our priority to make the roads safe and act quickly,” he said.
He said the roads affected by the storms were Stirling Street, Wongamine Road, Parker Road, Meenar South Road, Jennapullin Road, Dumbarton Road, Chitibin Road, Grass Valley North Road, Haddrill Road and Christmas Road.
Mr Kleynhans said the costs have not yet been calculated for labour and equipment.
Bureau of Meteorology spokesperson Neil Bennett said there was significant amounts of rain in the wheatbelt on the weekend.
He said the heaviest rainfall they received was at Doongin Peak, North Tammin which received 85 milimetres over three days.
The official rain measure for Northam was only .7mm and 5mm for York.
Mr Bennett said it is difficult to measure winds.
“The nature of thunderstorm activities means you will get quite isolated pockets of intense wind,” he said.
“It can be very localised and hard to measure.”
He said the Avon Valley is due to experience more storms in coming months.
“We are moving into a time of year where we get a lot of heating and trough formation,” he said. “The areas of low pressure can be a trigger for thunderstorm activity.”
However, Mr Bennett said BOM will only issue a severe weather warning for an area when wind gusts are expected to be 90/km/h or more.
Carla Hildebrandt
Journalist at the Mandurah Mail
Journalist at the Mandurah Mail
