Second night of storm events hit Chelsea

Another night of storms meant another night of jobs for Chelsea SES

Just before 5.30pm on Thursday evening (29/9/2011), as storms swept across Melbourne for the second night running, Chelsea SES teams were called to assist at the first of 6 jobs from Mentone to Bonbeach.

The large tree that came to rest on this Mentone home

Even though the jobs were small in number, they kept crews busy for quite a few hours. The biggest job by far, was a large tree that came down onto a house on the corner of View Street and Sea Parade in Mentone.

Assessing the situation before work begins to clear the tree

The crew begin removing some of the smaller, lower branches to avoid trip hazards

The tree narowly missed windows and a chimney

It was a lucky escape for all concerned. The home suffered only minimal damage to the spouting and fence and a small sedan and a caravan parked right next to the tree escaped completely unscathed.

The car and caravan that had a near miss, both left the scene without even a scratch

The scene at the corner of Sea Parade and View Street

Moving the cherry picker into place

The cherry picker gets to work clearing the upper limbs

City of Kingston attended the scene and through them Citywide who brought in a cherry picker to assist with the removal of the tree.

The Citywide cherry picker was invaluable in removing the tree

Earlier, crews attended a double story home in Kilara Road, Mentone, to reports that a second floor balcony had collapsed.

Another near miss as sections of this balcony gave way

The rear of the Kilara Road property in Mentone

On arrival, the team found that a large timber balcony that ran across the rear of the building had been damaged by the high winds. Almost all of the hand rail and posts had collapsed onto a small veranda below and once again, luck was on the side of the residents that nobody was on the veranda beneath the balcony when it came down.

Luckily nobody was on the veranda at the time the balcony collapsed

This sreal estate board was no match for the winds on Beach Road

In Parkers Road, Parkdale a garage roller door was blown in causing some minor damage to the car parked inside, iron roofing sheets were loosened and flapping in the wind at a unit in Chelsea, real estate boards were flattened along Beach Road at Mentone and a tree came down in Collins Court, Chelsea, blocking ¾ of the road creating a traffic hazard.

Mentone seemed to bear the brunt of the wind gusts

This was the second night in a row that the new Chelsea SES Twitter messaging service was in operation, keeping followers up to date with details of road closures and traffic hazards as they happened. Simply click on the Twitter logo to see what we mean.

So; all you have to do to keep one step ahead; is to follow Chelsea SES!

If you are not following us yet, you can do so at @SES_Chelsea and we look forward to having you get behind this new initiative.