By Gabriella Payne
Wednesday night’s wild weather wreaked havoc throughout the hills, with many local residents experiencing dangerously close calls as falling trees came crashing down around them.
One Cockatoo resident, Jesse Calvert, described the moment he and his family witnessed a huge tree come crashing through their roof, destroying their bedroom, ensuite bathroom and crushing his car and trailer in the process.
“We had no power, it was so scary because we didn’t know what tree was coming down and from what direction,” Mr Calvert said.
“We were sitting down and we heard a couple of loud bangs and so me and my partner went to see if the neighbours were ok.
They had a few trees down and as we were speaking, another tree came down right next to them, so we vacated inside.
It was about half an hour later that we heard a big bang, and a tree came right through our house.
We’re just lucky we weren’t there sleeping,” he said.
As soon as the tree came crashing through the roof, at about 9.15pm, Mr Calvert said that he tried to keep his pregnant partner, daughter and mother-in-law calm and moved them to a safe section of the house so that he could assess the damage.
He said that “enormous amounts of water” were pouring through the roof and he tried to reach out to the SES, but with a huge amount of people experiencing similar situations, they never made it.
“I think they had more important calls with power lines involved which I can understand, but we’ve been stuck with water gushing in for two days now,” Mr Calvert said.
“We’re waiting for our insurance to come and have a look, so I’ve just put a tarp over it for now just to stop the weather getting inside.
I’ve lived in the hills my whole life, but I’ve never seen damaging winds like this,” he said.
Mr Calvert said that although it was a devastating and dangerous situation, he was “just glad everyone is ok”.
“It took out my car and my trailer as well, so it’s not been the best 48 hours – I’m just lucky I’m insured,” he said.
