Wind to 110km/h batters region during ‘rare’ storm

Alex de Vos
Wind reaching 110km/h left a trail of havoc across the region on Wednesday.
Geelong State Emergency Service and Country Fire Authority reported hundreds of calls for help, mostly for damaged roofs, fallen trees and blackouts.
SES regional officer Shane Reeves said Geelong crews helped Melbourne teams with clean-ups yesterday after attending 200 call-outs on Wednesday.
CFA regional operations manager Bob Barry said the service attended about 40 calls on Wednesday.
“We also assisted the SES in Geelong,” Mr Barry said.
“We had a lot of power lines down, trees across the road and a few grass fires.”
“Luckily no one was hurt.”
Mr Barry said the gale-force wind was unusually strong.
“You don’t have too many days like it,” he said.
Geelong Weather Services’ Lindsay Smail said a severe low-pressure system combined with the remnants of tropical cyclone Pancho to produce the gale-force wind.
Gusts reached about 100km/h at Mt Duneed and 107km/h at Avalon, Mr Smail said.
“There were probably higher gusts in nearby places but they weren’t recorded.
“It was so severe because it was widespread across Victoria and not confined to local pockets.
“We haven’t had any bad ones like that in the past few years.”