Jenny Pollard, The Buloke Times

Two days after last Tuesday’s storm which created so much havoc across Victoria, it was hard not to be shocked by the damage Charlton sustained from just a few minutes of mother nature’s fury.

On Thursday last week, the majority of visible wreckage from what appeared to have been a mini tornado, was the countless trees and massive tree limbs fallen on roadsides, nature strips and across the town. Along with foliage pushed up kerb-side on sections of Charlton’s High Street, it was also the steady flow of vehicles and workers attending to the extensive clean-up which indicated the impact of the town’s latest “eventful” weather episode.

By Friday morning, thanks to a huge amount of clean-up work, much of the debris was gone and things were starting to return to normal.

It was nothing short of a miracle that no one had been injured, or that more structures weren’t flattened in the tumultuous weather event. A saving grace was that school finishing time had shifted to 3:15pm instead of the earlier time of 3, when the maelstrom hit. With less people around the consequences of things like the Post Office window explosion (it was blown out, not hit by a tree branch as previously reported!) could have been far more problematic had the street been busy.

On Thursday entry from the northern end of the town brought the intensity of the storm into sharp relief with a debris field of fractured tree limbs covering the area between Gordon Park and the Charlton swimming pool.

Already partially cleaned up (so I was told, but hard to believe), workers apparently found many dead birds amongst the wreckage, apparently having been swept up in the onslaught of wind and the falling branches. Strewn branches also covered the Gordon Park picnic area and a severely bent pipe railing was another sign of tree damage from the storm.

Restoring power

Heading north west along the Borung Highway from just past the Vale of Avoca, traffic was being directed with Stop / Slow signs as numerous work vehicles and cherry-pickers continued the task of reconnecting a couple of kilometers of power lines, which had been brought down by trees. The destruction only extended just past the Charlton cemetery, with little sign of the storm’s impact beyond that point.

Back in the township the flattened signage at the Traveller’s Rest, the Charlton Motel with five units damaged and a massive eucalyptus branch (which somehow didn’t smash the Charlton Hall roof) were further signs of the wind’s force.

Motel managers, Mark O’Connor and Donna Kupfer were shattered by the intensity of the storm, which damaged five of the units when the roofs were ripped off and wrapped around a tree some distance away. Water damage to the ceilings, and bedding, plus the outside veranda being dislodged was just one part of the overall impact of the storm on their business.

“We couldn’t believe our eyes” Donna said.

“The Motel pool was filled with tree branches and leaves, the tennis court fence was ripped off and the outside pool table (set in place for this weekend’s ‘Ok Motels’ event) was split in half under a huge tree branch.”

“When the roof lifted off the units” Mark said, “it took the veranda with it, dislodging the posts. Danny Wright (builder) has been working here for two days – and has done a ripper job – but the damage is still clear to see.”

While plans are in place to provide alternate accommodation for the sell-out music event, Donna said the rooms which were affected had only recently been painted and done up.

“So now we are back to square one again!” she said.

Further clean ups around the grounds were a work in progress and the tarping of the damaged roofs was expected to happen on Friday.

The storm’s ferocity has been a recurring topic of conversation with people commenting on its intensity, the swirling motion and how it stopped as abruptly as it started.

With many more individual stories about house and property damage yet to be shared, along with the accompanying wide-spread and prolonged power outage, this is another of nature’s visits which nobody wants to see repeated.

This article appeared in The Buloke Times, 20 February 2024.

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