By Brendan Rees
Strong winds kept Narre Warren State Emergency Service volunteers busy over the weekend of 17-18 August.
Crews helped Victoria Police at an incident whereby a car had rolled-over after it struck a tree on Craig Road in Pearcedale during the early hours of Saturday 18 August – “making an absolute mess of the car,” the unit’s spokesman Damian Burns said.
Paramedics treated the driver who was taken to Casey Hospital in a stable condition.
Volunteers used a chainsaw to dismantle the tree in under an hour to make the area safe for road users.
An eight-metre gum tree also threatened to topple onto a family home in Hampton Park about 1pm on Sunday 18 August.
“The roots, on one side had lifted above the ground … and was rocking,” Mr Burns said.
Volunteers used chainsaws to trim the tree to reduce its weight and also set up a picket holdfast to the tree until arborists arrived at the Branton Drive property.
Wild winds blew polystyrene blocks from a building site in Clyde which SES crews had to tie down.
“When the job came through it was for loose debris so with the strong winds we naturally thought tree branches or the like,” Mr Burns said.
Another job included a tree that fell onto the corner of Dandenong- Hastings Road and Robertsons Road in Pearcedale, causing a traffic hazard.
