• Footscray, Yarraville, Braybrook Star

By Alesha Capone and Charlene Gatt

9th March 2010 11:05:39 AM

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MARIBYRNONG State Emergency Service volunteers were flooded with more than 250 requests for assistance as wild storms and strong winds hit the region over the weekend.

SES unit contoller Ruby Haochar said the service received more than 250 pleas for help since Friday afternoon, with winds recorded at up to 54km per hour.

“We’ve been operating 24/7,” she said.

“Every second job we had has been a roof collapse.”

Ms Haochar said residences in Maidstone and Braybrook had been among the worst affected.

She said several factories in the Maribyrnong municipality with glass roofs also had ceilings broken by hailstones, with “glass scattered everywhere” on Monday morning.

Around 30 SES volunteers assisted the public as the wild weather hit, with additional crews from interstate, Ballarat, Brimbank and Altona lending a hand.

Ms Haochar said the SES also helped rescue a few people from cars which became trapped in flood water.

She said people should not attempt to drive through flood water and residents needed to keep their house gutters clean, when storms were expected.

The weekend rainfall helped Footscray achieve one of its wettest starts in recent years, taking in over 110mm of rain since 1 January.





Continued on page 3

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