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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-11-17 Daily Xml
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Waite Electorate

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (15:13): On Saturday, at about 4.30pm some parts of my electorate were wishing they had their ruby slippers with them because the twister came to our town. At a time when I was at Marion shopping centre collecting some tablecloths for the big Rotary fair that was to be held on Sunday, all of a sudden all the lights went out. I do not know if you have ever been in a big shopping centre when lights go out, but it can get a little bit scary.

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

Ms HUTCHESSON: It is dark, thank you, member for Chaffey. It took about 45 minutes for them to evacuate cars out of the centre. All the while, I had no idea what was going on in my electorate. Eventually I had a call from a friend of mine who said, 'There are trees everywhere, there are powerlines everywhere, what do we do about it?' Of course, dial 000 was my advice. At the same time, I rang my son and said, 'Perhaps you had best to head up to the CFS station because your pager is about to go off.'

One of the biggest storms my community has ever seen hit hard and in all sorts of places. It zigzagged its way from west to east and many houses met with grief that day. On the way up from Marion, I pulled over outside the fairground where the Rotary club had put so much work into planning their return from COVID, and unfortunately all the marquees and structures they had already put up for the fair were crushed. Some of them were across the road and there was all sorts of carnage in terms of trees and branches down. It was heartbreaking for them and heartbreaking for me that I had gone to get tablecloths for the fair that was not going to go ahead.

I managed to stop and assist the Rotary team in starting to clean up some of the mess, whilst hundreds and hundreds of wind gusts and rain started. We saw CFS trucks going here, there and everywhere as they were responding to all the callouts. The damage bill for Rotary was over $25,000 at early estimates.

Whilst the fairground was being cleaned up, things were unfolding further up the hill as well, and eventually my son rang and said, 'There is no way you are getting home up our main road,' so in order to get home to get to the CFS station so that I, too, could help our community, I went through Coromandel Valley, through Ironbank, and came across not one, not two, not three but four trees that were across the road. Thankfully, the Ironbank truck was right behind me and they continued to clean that up while I found another route up to the station. That night we went to so many houses that had been crushed by trees. We went to plenty of driveways where residents were not going to be able to get out, and there were trees all over the ground.

It was not until Sunday in daylight that the scope of the storm was truly realised. It was heartbreaking to see whole streets where house after house had serious structural damage, not to mention the work that was to be undertaken for the rest of that day and indeed for the next couple of weeks. In the whole area, all you could hear were chainsaws and generators. Whilst it was hard to listen to in terms of the work that was being done, it was very lovely to see our community come together with their chainsaws, their drink bottles, rakes and gloves to help out one another. In Blackwood and Belair, there was plenty more devastation on roads such as Cumming Street, Winns Road and Louis Avenue. Road after road of work needed to be done.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the first responders who answered the call over and over again. I think no truck went back to the station. They went from callout to callout trying to help residents. There were welfare checks, doorknocks on some doors where trees had crushed houses, there were little notes with people's mobile numbers so they could be contacted if they needed to be. It was heartbreaking, but our community has come together and we are working hard to get cleaned up.

Mitcham council are out every day trying to collect the refuse from the roadside verges. SA Power Networks had been working incredibly hard trying to restore power. We still have just under 1,000 residents left with no power, which includes me unfortunately, but hopefully by Saturday everybody—and, of course, the member for Badcoe, although not in my electorate, had to have a shower elsewhere this morning.

Speaking of showers, our local gyms have really come to the party. Anytime Fitness Blackwood, Premium Fitness and the Blackwood Recreation Centre have opened their showers to the community so that they can have a hot shower, with Premium Fitness also offering toasties and coffee.

One final thing, if I may: Cafe 1923, where I visited this morning with the Premier, has been offering all emergency services and SA Power Networks responders free coffee whenever they needed it. So a big thankyou to all our first responders, a big thankyou to all our communities who have come together. We will get through it. There is learning to be had from it, but I do know we will be more prepared next time.

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