YOU gotta love the green leafy character of Inverloch. Most days.
But not when gale force winds hit the coast as they have over the past few days, gusting up to 154 km/h at Wilsons Promontory as they did at 4.11pm on Wednesday, August 28, and consistently above the 100km/h mark for most of the day.
Even at Rhyll on Phillip Island, usually sheltered from a westerly blast, winds hit 74km/h mark on Wednesday afternoon.
So, it’s hardly surprising that trees were coming down right across the district from Mirboo North, where the impacts of the February 13 storm remain visible everywhere, to Leongatha, Korumburra, and down to Inverloch.
It was there, on Wednesday morning, that local resident Liam Heys made the call, and took his family to Leongatha to spend the day and following night with his parents.
“We’ve got a couple of trees in the front yard that we weren’t sure about and one of them came down during the night,” said Liam on Wednesday afternoon.
“We heard it go and so did our next-door neighbour.
“Luckily for us, it fell forwards, across the other neighbour’s fence, which wasn’t ideal for him, but if it fell the other way it would have been right across our roof.
“I love living on a treed block but not in those winds
“While we were in Leongatha, the other part of the tree came down, but fortunately it snapped the trunk off half-way up and only part of it fell on our roof. I don’t think it has done much damage, but it’s certainly made a mess.”
Liam said he’d called the SES to cut the tree off the roof and away from blocking the garage, but they said they’ve been so busy they’ve had to prioritize the emergency cases first.
“They told us they would get to us but after they’ve done the more critical jobs, where roofs and cars have been damaged.
“The neighbour came out this morning (Wednesday) and chain-sawed the tree off the fence, but there’s still a fair bit of cleaning up to be done.
“The tree turned out to be pretty rotten, so we are going to get the rest of the trees looked at just in case.”
It’s not bad advice.
You can love your trees, and love living in amongst them, but if there’s one with a rotten branch or trunk, you could have a lethal weapon in your front yard just waiting for the next bout of stormy weather to arrive.
