Weekend storm brings down power and trees in Kempsey Shire

A storm swept through the area just before 3pm on Saturday, November 4 with rain, lightning and strong winds impacting properties across the Macleay.

Essential Energy Community Relations Manager North Coast Raelene Myers said approximately 2,300 homes and businesses across Kempsey, Frederickton, Crescent Head, Smithtown, Gladstone and surrounding areas lost power due to the storm.

"Lightning and strong winds brought down trees and branches, damaging various powerlines and power poles throughout the affected areas," she said.

"To keep the community safe, safety equipment was operated, including within the Crescent Head Zone Substation, isolating power to customers until crews were able to assess, make safe and repair damage."

Crescent Head Road was closed after trees fell into power lines during the storm.

NSW SES Kempsey Shire unit commander Bill Sanders said his crews received approximately 18 calls for assistance on the Saturday and continued to work the following day.

"Most of them were from trees that had fallen over," he said.

Mr Sanders said a majority of the damage was reported in Crescent Head and East Kempsey but crews had received jobs at Stuarts Point.

"We had crews just about everywhere across town," he said .

"There was a house that did lose most of its roof but for the most part, the damage to houses was minor."

Essential Energy crews worked overnight and into Sunday afternoon with crews from Nambucca Heads and Port Macquarie joining to complete the repairs in the shortest timeframe safety would allow.

Ms Myers said that power was restored to a majority of customers by 2pm on Sunday, October 5.

Weatherzone meteorologist Felix Levesque said that a southerly change building up the coast activated a trigger for the storm.

"That southerly change came across 1.30pm and 2.30pm on Saturday in Kempsey," he said.

"Within 30 minutes around that time you got 33 millimetres of rain."

Within the hour, 40 millimetres of rain were recorded in Kempsey with passing showers following the next day which saw roughly 20 millimetres of rain in the morning.

The strongest gusts of wind recorded at Kempsey Airport reached up to 21 knots, just under 39 kilometres per hour.

The wet weather comes as parts of NSW were hit with wild wet weather over the weekend, with Telegraph Point recording 134 millimetres of rain.

Mr Levesque said there was a stormy outlook for eastern NSW in the coming week.

"We've got a trough that's deepening over NSW over more western and central NSW," he said.

"But that's going to shift eastwards and probably bring about some more interesting weather from around Thursday (November 9) or Friday (November 10)."

Mr Levesque said that the wet weather appeared to be mostly confined to the ranges but there was a possibility of seeing storms move across the area.

"We still will be looking at some chances of showers mostly focused on the later part of the week," he said.

Essential Energy reminds everyone, to keep at least 8 metres away from fallen or damaged powerlines or power poles and to contact Essential Energy immediately on 13 20 80.

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