A 59-year-old woman has been killed after severe storms ripped through parts of south-east Queensland on Monday night, bringing intense rain, large hail and fierce winds.
Police said the woman was struck by a tree in the suburb of Helensvale, on the Gold Coast, around 9:30pm.
Winds of 100 kph lashed the area, causing property damage and bringing down trees and more than 800 powerlines.
Queensland Ambulance said they did everything they could to save the woman, but she suffered critical injuries.
“Our hearts absolutely go out to the family of a 59-year-old female who died last night when a tree fell on the car that she was travelling in,” Assistant Commissioner Gold Coast Region Andrew Hebbron said.
He said crews had up to 50 calls in the peak of the storm from people being injured in their homes to “less serious electrocutions”, cuts and bruises.
Mr Hebbron said there are currently access issues around Canungra and Mount Tamborine, warning people to stay off the roads if possible.
‘Like a mini cyclone’
Queensland Premier Steven Miles said the storm was unprecedented.
“This is the first time we have seen a storm so intense that it has taken down concrete power poles,” he said.
Energy crews are still assessing the damage, with 123,000 homes still without power. Mr Miles said it could take days to restore.
Meanwhile, Deputy Premier Cameron Dick said speaking to residents, the storm could only be described as a “mini cyclone”.
“That storm front that swept across the south-east has caused very significant damage,” he says.
“There have been hundreds of thousands of lightning strikes and that has done very significant damage to our energy and power network across the south-east.”
Queensland Fire and Emergency was tasked with 28 rescues, including people trapped in home, cars and caravans.
The SES received about 450 calls for help.
Premier Miles said the Queensland Reconstruction Authority was assessing whether the weather event reached the disaster activation threshold.
“We’ll have more to say on what assistance we can make available later in the day but right now we’re focused on doing those damage assessments and getting the power back on for as many people as we can,” he said.
Roof ‘peeled off like a giant sardine can’
Gold Coast residents say it is the worst storm they’ve seen in more than 30 years.
Pacific Pines resident Michael Craig was holidaying in Albury with his family when he received a Christmas Day phone call, informing him the roof of his home had been “peeled off like a giant sardine can”.
A family friend’s daughter was house-sitting at the time and wearing noise-cancelling headphones, and only realised the extent of the damage when light was coming through the ceiling.
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“She said she saw something out of the corner of her eye and it was the roof being torn off, like the movie Twister,” Mr Craig said.
He said he would be returning to assess the damage tomorrow but was at a loss as to what would come next.
“Hopefully by then the powers back on but at the moment we’ve got nowhere to stay when we go back because the house is completely torn off,” he said.
“Inside’s demolished, ceilings have fallen down, everything’s soaking wet, beds are ruined.
“I’ve got friends and family trying to salvage what they can, pictures, photos, passports, everything important.
“It’s absolutely devastating, I’m trying to stay strong for my family.”
Oxenford resident Naomi Fowler said the storm was “the fiercest thing I’ve ever been in”.
“It was very much like a cyclone,” she said.
“We could just hear trees coming down … we could hear glass shattering. There’s trees through houses in our street, trees through sheds and lots of glass broken.”
Major theme parks close
Movie World, Wet’n’Wild, Dream World and White Water World have all confirmed they will be closed today due to severe storm damage.
It also includes Paradise Country and Topgolf.
Movie World said they hoped to open again tomorrow, but the Bureau of Meteorology said there was a chance more wild weather could be on the way today.
Areas along the coast from Sarina — south of Mackay — to the Sunshine Coast are in the firing line.
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Senior forecaster Shane Kennedy said conditions will worsen throughout the afternoon.
“Damaging wind gusts, so those wind gusts above 90 kilometres an hour, large hail, which is two centimetres or more and heavy rainfall, which could cause flash flooding,” he said.
“So certainly all those three phenomena are on the cards for the eastern districts today.”
“There is the possibility of something covering quite a broad area of south-east Queensland and into northern New South Wales where we could see those severe thunderstorms again today,” she said.
There is currently a major flood warning for the Logan River, with minor flooding possible at Maclean Bridge tonight and into Wednesday.
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Storms hit the west
Eight hundred kilometres to the west, the rural town of Charleville was also hit by a severe thunderstorm, ripping roofs from houses and felling trees onto parked cars.
The Charleville Airport recorded wind gusts of 126kph just after 2pm yesterday.
Graham Reid, co-owner of the caravan park, said he had never seen anything like it.
“It was quite extraordinary … these storms just come out of nowhere,” he said.
“We’ve got trees down all over the place, ripped the sail off our house, took the roof off one of our storage areas.”
Mr Reid was moving a fallen tree limb off the back deck when he slipped and fell down the stairs, fracturing a rib.
He drove himself to hospital where he was told he would have to wait until Wednesday for an X-ray.
“They said go home and rest up for a couple of weeks, can’t see that happening,” he said.
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