CHELSEA SES crews received more than 400 calls for assistance from residents of Parkdale, Waterways, Aspendale and Chelsea Heights as strong overnight winds wrought havoc, last Wednesday (25 November).
SES spokesman Phil Wall said the pager roused volunteers from their beds just after 6am, when visible signs of the damage caused by the cool change that roared across Melbourne’s southern suburbs became apparent.
Len and Judy Millership, of Kennedy Av, Chelsea Heights, woke to the sound of a large old liquid amber tree coming down onto their back fence at 5am.
“We were going to have it chopped down after Christmas but the storm came and crack, down she came,” Mrs Millership said.
“The SES were wonderful. We are pensioners and we thought we would have to pay them but they said, “No, you don’t owe us a thing.”
In Aspendale, a large branch from a nature strip tree came down onto a car parked in the driveway of a Bega Ct house and, in Parkdale, a large tree came down onto telephone wires.
As the winds continued, so did the calls for assistance making it a busy day for SES crews at Chelsea.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 2 December 2015