SHOCK: A group of residents survey the damage on Terara Road on Sunday morning.
IT looked like a warzone.
The scenic countryside along Terara Road was a battered, twisted mess.
As residents described it, a “mini cyclone” swept through the area just after 3am on Sunday morning and in a couple of minutes left a swathe of destruction.
Power lines were down everywhere, cutting electricity to the area.
Huge trees were uprooted. Homes lost roofs, sheds were destroyed and in a couple of cases were literally blown apart. A number of animals were killed.
Despite the destruction there were, no reports of injuries.
It was a scene we have all seen on television many times before but never thought we would see in our own town.
Residents said the storm “sounded just like a freight train running past the front of my house”.
The historic Terara School escaped damage, despite a number of large tree limbs coming down around the playground.
Many old-time residents expressed amazement at the destruction.
Max Lamond and Toby Witheridge, who have both lived in the area all their lives, said they had never experienced anything like it.
A stretch of Terara Road, from around Cochrane’s dairy at Numbaa, up to near the sewage treatment works was badly affected as the storm cell moved through town, uprooting a number of trees along the Princes Highway in and around the Shoalhaven City Council Administrative Centre, extensively damaging a house in Hyam Street and causing minor damage at Shoalhaven Hospital.
But through it all local residents again rallied, there to help each other out in the clean-up.