Last night’s big storm brought black clouds, lightning and winds - and caused damage to houses and caused power blackouts. It also kept the local State Emergency Service (SES) busy, with 31 calls for assistance reported across the Lismore area. 

Lismore City SES acting unit commander Lacy Loloa said the winds were so strong, people reported seeing horizontal rain in the Goonellabah area. 

“We had three SES crews out past midnight removing fallen trees from houses and roads, with the majority of the damage in the Clunes and Richmond Hill area,” Ms Loloa said.

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“We had 13 jobs in Clunes and several in Goonellabah. There are still more jobs coming in and crews are out there again today, removing trees from houses and clearing access to properties.

“There’s a few residents with roof damage and we had to remove the trees from houses first so we can get on the roof and chop the bits up.”

Trees were reported down over Bangalow Road and Corndale Road, and the electricity supply was cut in Tregeagle and the Richmond Hill area.

“We had the Alphadale SES crew assisting, as well as Lismore City Council and Essential Energy to clear trees and get the power back on,” Ms Loloa said.

So, is this kind of storm normal for early March?

“It’s the normal summer storm in general ,” Ms Loloa said. “Even though we are in a La Nina weather pattern – La Nina is more about is rainfall increasing.

“We have a saturated catchment at the moment so any large downpours of rain will see flash flooding in our region when the water runs off.

“We are always monitoring the weather and we have heard reports there will be storms over the next few days, so we advise people to monitor the Bureau of Meteorology websites as well as Lismore City SES and Northers Rivers Weather Facebook pages.

“We just need to wait and see what’s going to happen because you don’t know where the storm is going to hit.”