Emergency crews are continuing the massive cleanup following Monday afternoon’s freak hail storm that hit parts of the ACT.
Belconnen was the hardest hit region with strong winds and hail stones lashing the district and trees falling onto streets, cars and homes.
The State Emergency Service has now received more than 800 calls for help following the weather event.
ACT SES Chief Officer Anthony Draheim said, as of Wednesday morning, 300 of those jobs were still yet to be completed.
“The cleanup is taking longer than we expected, that’s mainly because of the large trees that have fallen down across the Belconnen region.”
“We had one tree on Monday evening that we had three crews working on and it took three hours to cut up – that’s how big the tree was.”
Mr Draheim thanked the more than 140 volunteers involved with the clean up so far and said the remaining jobs are expected to be completed by early tomorrow morning at the latest but remains concerned about further rain and storm activity forecast for the region later this week.
“If you have an opportunity, remove any loose debris such as furniture or toys in your backyard, clean your gutters and remove any loose or low hanging limbs from trees.”
That comes as thousand of residents in the Belconnen region remain without power on Wednesday morning.
Evo Energy crews are working to restore services, which are expected to be back in action by 4pm on Wednesday afternoon, almost 48 hours after the storm hit.
In the event of a storm you can contact the ACT SES on 132 500 or in an emergency 000.
