Move FM Regional news

LITHGOW, Central West, NSW, Australia – A major clean-up operation is underway across Greater Lithgow following a massive storm that rocked the region Thursday afternoon.

Golf ball-sized hail combined with torrential rain and strong winds have resulted in the Lithgow City Council Works Depot partially collapsing, and sections of the roof of the Westfund building in Railway Parade, Lithgow also coming loose.

There are numerous reports of trees down across roads and power lines, as well as roads partly collapsing.

Endeavour Energy is currently dealing with widespread power outages across their extensive network.

The Council Works Depot building partially collapsed onto busy Mort Street at the height of the storm. Now that the clean-up has been completed, Council’s initial summation of the damage is that the building appears unstable and may have to be demolished.

In the meantime Council’s concerns have turned to their sewer and water pumping plants which appear to have been affected by the power interruptions.
Council has mobilised its emergency, parks, and sewer plant staff.

Elsewhere the State Emergency Service has been assisting Fire and Rescue NSW personnel on Railway Parade, which is currently closed to all traffic between Eskbank and Tank Streets.

Sections of the roof of the Westfund Building have lifted, some debris falling onto nearby trees. Emergency personnel are concerned at the stability of the structure and have halted all traffic, botH pedestrian and vehicular from gaining access to the area.

To add to Thursday night’s woes, Endeavour Energy is reporting around 20,000 customers are currently without power as a result of lightning strikes and damage to their infrastructure.

Of those 20,000, 814 are at Bowenfels, 630 in Lithgow, and 398 at South Bowenfels. In the Blue Mountains there are 679 customers in Mount Victoria without power, while at Bilpin another 324 are affected.

According to Endeavour Energy, Lithgow was the first area hit by the outage, and is also one of the hardest areas to repair.

Some of those affected residents were being warned to brace for a long night without power. Some areas were expected to be back online until Saturday morning.