THE Sulo bins were tumbling down the main street, debris from stripped trees covered cars and you couldn’t see the footpath from the shop window as the winds reached cyclone force and rain and hail swept through the town.
Amazingly, though Craig Young’s Butchery at 90A Ridgway, Mirboo North was mercifully unaffected and after an emergency dash to Melbourne to get a generator on Wednesday, because there were none left in the area, he was back up and operating on Wednesday morning with little or no loss of meat.
“No, no damage. We were incredibly lucky,” said Craig on Sunday, back in the shop throughout the day making up for lost time, supplying meat to the IGA Supermarket and getting his own freezes and display cabinets set up again for Monday trade.
“We were in the shop at the time. The storm hit and it just kept going harder. At one stage we couldn’t even see the footpath from the window with the white hail, rain and debris flying past.
“After it was over, there were Sulo bins strewn around, which had been ready for bin day on Wednesday, and all the cars in the street were covered in the leaves that had been stripped from the trees.
“There was surprisingly little damage to the trees in the street, apart from a few branches off up near the library, but yeah, no power of course.”
With the generator in place, and a late night getting produce ready on Wednesday night, Craig’s front door was open again on Thursday morning, ready to meet the demand that followed for gas BBQ meals in the days while the power was off in town.
“Just incredibly lucky. We lost a bit of the small stuff and some things we chucked out to be on the safe side, but no, once we got the generator we were right. Very thankful for that,” said Craig this week.
