The Day The Heavens Gave Out Hell
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday May 16, 1990
At 10.30am on Sunday, March 18, the weather bureau issued a routine forecast for Sydney, predicting "a shower or two and a slight chance of a thunderstorm".
Sometime after noon, as Sydney continued to enjoy the warm weekend, a storm cell began forming in the skies 40 kilometres south-west of Camden.
By sundown, it had slashed a violent path across the city, dumping 10-centimetre hailstones on the suburbs and causing an estimated $360 million in damage to cars and homes.
Two months later, houses are still waiting to be repaired. One insurance company told the Herald this week that it could be years before all the cars pitted by the hail find panelbeaters.
The storm had been "pushed" by a weak southerly change and was fed by humid air from the coast.
The storm cell continued to grow, with its peak possibly more than 15 kilometres above the ground. Ice crystals, formed in the towering clouds, were sucked higher by the roaring updrafts until they grew too big and plunged back to earth.
As the fell, they were caught again and again in the updrafts. The process continued until the ice crystals had grown to hailstones "as big as oranges".
At 3pm, the weather bureau radars at Sydney Airport and the Cataract Dam, south-west of Sydney, detected the rapidly growing menace and a "severe thunder storm" warning instantly went out to the radio stations.
Thirty minutes later, the storm began ploughing through the south-western suburbs. At 4pm it was over Bankstown and by 5pm it was over the sea off the northern beaches.
In street after street, hail smashed almost every window facing the approaching storm. Roofs were torn from houses by the winds and mature trees were hurled through ceilings.
Volunteers from the southern Sydney region of the State Emergency Services responded to more than 2,000 calls for urgent help from people living in the Liverpool, Fairfield and Bankstown areas.
Another 2,174 calls from people living mainly in the suburbs of Lidcombe, Berala and Auburn flooded into the western metropolitan division of the SES.
By the time the storm was over the northern suburbs, it was already weakening. There, only 270 calls for emergency help were received, mostly from Lane Cove and Willoughby.
In the hard-hit western suburbs, 25,000 Prospect County Council customers were blacked out. Many did not have power restored for two days as 100 emergency workers struggled to repair nine kilometres of fallen wires.
Mr Allan Porter, the Government liaison executive for the Insurance Council of Australia, said the various insurance companies had so far received more than 50,000 claims for hail damage.
"We are estimating the cost of the claims at $300 million plus," he said.
Mr Gus Miller, the NRMA's assistant general manager of the claims department, described the hailstorm as "the largest disaster the NRMA has ever faced".
His company was expecting about 18,000 house and 35,000 car damage claims.
"We are still receiving claims at a rate of 300 to 350 a day," he said. "We are paying out $850,000 to $900,000 every day."
He predicted that the storm would end up costing the company $120 million in car repairs and $35 million for home claims, compared with a payout of $55 million for the Newcastle earthquake.
Meanwhile the GIO said it was facing 9,000 household claims, worth $20 million and 8,000 car claims, worth another $40 million.
"We'd regard that as a catastrophe," declared the GIO's household claims manager, Mr Ian Norris.
Other companies have been busy battling to catch up on the repairs. In Lidcombe, blue tarpaulins still cover the roofs of houses waiting the arrival of tilers.
Mr Merv O'Keefe, the replacement glass manager for O'Brien Glass, said his company had probably repaired "in excess of 50,000 windows" and hoped to have all its hail jobs completed this week.
Repairing all the hail-damaged cars could take a lot longer.
"I've done five, but I've got 80 to 90 still to go," said Mr Tony Musico, the owner of Musico Smash Repairs at Moorebank.
"Fifteen months should see the end of it," he said. "The biggest problem is that we can't get enough spare parts."
Meanwhile, Telecom has agreed to restore temporarily a lightning detection system it shut down just days before the storm in a bid to save $80,000 a year.
A Prospect County Council spokesman said it had relied upon the system to provide advanced warnings of approaching storms.
However, a Weather Bureau spokesman said it was unlikely that any new technology could have provided the public with more than an hour's warning.
"Where it all falls down is in how you get the information out to the public," he said, noting that on a Sunday afternoon, most people were too busy enjoying themselves to be listening for weather warnings on the radio.
"And when you have hailstones the size of oranges, there is very little you can do anyway."
THE HAILSTORM Calls for emergency help 4,000 Size of hailstones up to 10cm Insurance claims to date 50,000 Insurance claims to date $300 million Estimated number of cars damaged 55,000 Estimated insured damage to cars $250 million Estimated number of house claims 55,000 Estimated cost of insured damage to houses $110 million NEXT: The Boral Explosion.
© 1990 Sydney Morning Herald