Brisbane stunned by severe storm: 'no time to evacuate, no warning'

Brisbane storm damage – in pictures A ‘supercell’ storm hits Brisbane during afternoon peak hour, flooding roads, smashing windows and flipping planes Merran Hitchick Thursday 27 November 2014 17.07 EST Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Share on LinkedIn Share on Google+ Comments 17 Facebook Twitter Pinterest expand Two storm cells meet over Brisbane, creating a ‘supercell’ which lashed the city on Thursday. Photograph: Kai Linkerhof A light plane is badly damaged at Archerfield aerodrome in Brisbane’s south. Photograph: Dan Peled/AAP Merran Hitchick Thursday 27 November 2014 17.07 EST Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Share on LinkedIn Share on Google+ Comments 17 Facebook Twitter Pinterest expand Two storm cells meet over Brisbane, creating a ‘supercell’ which lashed the city on Thursday. Photograph: Kai Linkerhof Residents are still counting the cost of Thursday’s storm, which left many without power overnight, and others without a roof Brisbane storm - in pictures Why was the storm so bad? Brisbane cleans up A three-story unit block in Toowong, an inner suburb of Brisbane, completely lost its roof and had windows shattered by the storm on Thursday. Photograph: Malena Salinas Joshua Robertson and agencies Friday 28 November 2014 03.55 EST Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Share on LinkedIn Share on Google+ Comments 250 The worst hail storm to hit Brisbane in a generation has been declared a catastrophe by insurers and prompted the Queensland government to call in the military to help clean up the damage. Residents left counting the costs had already begun work in darkness overnight. The half-hour squall on Thursday afternoon – dumping up to 70mm of rain and hail as big as tennis balls – punched holes in glass skyscrapers, lifted apartment block roofs and shattered windows in thousands of properties and cars across the city. The Queensland premier, Campbell Newman, told ABC radio the storm was “probably the worst to hit city as a whole since 1985”. Newman said 39 people called ambulances during the storm, but only 12 patients were taken to hospital and none had life-threatening injuries. Malena Salinas came home to find the wreckage of the roof from her three storey unit block in Toowong on the street in front of her. The University of Queensland speech pathology student, originally of Texas, told Guardian Australia that she was “used to seeing hurricanes but this was so quick – and it wasn’t a hurricane, it was just water”. “It was all of a sudden, no time to evacuate, no warning,” she said. “I just feel so bad for [unit] five. They’re students. Everything was destroyed.” Another shaken resident on the third floor took refuge in the bathroom as the roof was peeled off. Facebook Twitter Pinterest expand The roof from the apartment building Malena Salinas lives in was swept into the building’s driveway and the adjacent street by 140km/h winds. Photograph: Malena Salinas “There was no time to leave,” Salinas said, “because you can see the windows shattered and it was pretty dangerous to walk down [the stairwell] and have the glass come down.” Advertisement Sheets of metal roofing fell on a car that Salinas’ landlord was trying to park in the garage to avoid hail damage. She received minor injuries. The rest of the roof wound up in a twisted heap on Coronation Drive, one of the city’s major riverside boulevards. A resident of another apartment block 650m away said she believed some of that metal roofing on Coronation Drive was from her own building. “It matches what’s out front,” said the woman, who asked not to be named. “It was pretty strong winds. It was like a mini cyclone.” The sixth floor apartment which lost its roof above her was about to go to auction, she said. Salinas’ landlord said the normally placid Brisbane river was whipped up into “Noosa surf” like swells, forcing a council catamaran ferry to cut its engine and ride out the storm in the middle of the river. The woman, after a quick visit to the doctor and with family and cleaning equipment in tow, began cleaning up A beat police officer posted to guard another Toowong street with a fallen power line said the roof of a nearby house had also “caved in - but luckily no injuries”. That storm caused just over $2bn damage in today’s money, according to the Insurance council of Australia. The ICA said insurers took 2,000 calls within hours of Thursday’s squall. As of 9am they had received 8100 claims worth an estimated $61m, consisting of 4500 under homes and contents policies and 3600 for motor vehicles. An Ica spokesman said this figure was expected to rise sharply over the next several days.