By Dongyun Kwon
Strong winds have hit the Yarra Valley for a week, which caused a number of fallen trees and power outages.
Healesville SES had about 30 callouts last week and 14 callouts in the morning on Monday 2 September.
Healesville SES unit controller Karen Picone said most callouts were about fallen trees and building damages.
“Don Road towards Donna Buang has had multiple trees down on Wednesday and Friday [last week],” she said.
“They were all large trees. On Friday, I rang VicRoads to assist, and we worked together to clear them.”
From around 8pm on Sunday 1 September, the wind started to become strong, recording 26.6km per hour in Healesville.
It peaked between 1am and 4am with a record of 46.3km per hour at 3.30am.
The Healesville SES had its first callout of the day around 2am on Monday 2 September and had 14 callouts until 9am in that morning.
Ms Picone said the main job was on Healesville-Kinglake Road between Healesville RACV and River Street as multiple trees fell on the road.
“We had four big gum trees down between the railway line and the RACV club, and we needed to pass it to VicRoads because the trees were so big and we had so many other jobs to do.”,” she said.
“We just want to remind people to be careful when driving in the conditions and not to drive over fallen trees.
“We’ve had someone drive over a fallen tree, and it’s very dangerous as you don’t know what’s under it.”
There were several power outages due to the severe weather conditions over the week.
515 households in Yering and Yarra Glen, Healesville and Toolangi were out of power from Wednesday 28 August to Thursday 29 August.
127 households in Tarrawarra, Yarra Glen, Healesville and Dixons Creek were affected by the power outages on Friday 31 August.
975 households in Tarrawarra, Yarra Glen, Healesville, Dixons Creek, Toolangi, Steels Creek, Christmas Hills and Smiths Gully were out of power on Monday 2 September.
