“AS bad as anything you see on television or in movies,” is how former Warrnambool man Barry Day described the destruction around his Southern Queensland home.
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Mr Day now lives in Bargara, near Bundaberg, which bore the brunt of a series of tornadoes that crossed the coast over the weekend.
He said the weather in the area was often volatile, but the weekend’s events were out of the ordinary.
“We have been up here for two years now, and have seen some ripper storms, but never anything like this,” Mr Day told The Standard.
“It’s knocked the daylights out of people’s houses and businesses right along the coast.
“Houses have just been trashed, it’s like what you see in disaster movies and on TV, there is just debris everywhere.”
Click this link to see social media reaction to the Queensland floods.
Mr Day said his house had come through the tornadoes relatively unscathed, but his neighbours weren’t so lucky.
“We are still intact, there is not much damage to our place at all,” he said
“The little milk bar down the road has just been gutted and the houses in the streets around us have been as well,” he said.
“The power is still off, down the street the power poles have been ripped out of the ground and are still across the road.
“I’m not expecting the power to be back on for another three or four days.”
Mr Day said the storm looked as though it was heading south before it turned and hit from the north. He said roads were closed as the clean-up effort continued.
The tornadoes left 20 people injured, two critically after their car was crushed by a falling tree.
He said they would now be monitoring the unfolding flood situation around the Bundaberg area, and southern parts of Queensland. “It’s hard to know what’s happening at the moment, because we don’t have power, but from what I’ve heard on the radio, we shouldn’t be impacted by the (Burnett) river,” he said.
“It’s just a bit of a waiting game at the moment.”