CREWS were still cleaning up more than 24 hours after a freak storm lashed East Tamworth on Monday afternoon.
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Tamworth Regional Council (TRC) worked well into the night and throughout Tuesday, while Essential Energy scrambled to return power to more than 3800 homes and businesses across the town.
Trees across Tamworth’s east were hit by the strong winds with gum trees on Brisbane St throwing piles of branches across the road into neighboring properties, while the suburb’s silky oak trees found the storm too much to bear.
“Council has already removed the fallen Silky Oaks from Tamworth’s Viaduct Park, Angora Park and Darling Street,” acting manager horticulture and recreation services, Murray Russell, said.
“The priority is currently on making safe any type of tree which is damaged to posing a hazard following Monday’s storm.
“Unfortunately, there are hundreds of Silky Oaks in Tamworth’s CBD and East Tamworth which were planted in the 1930s and are now in serious decline due to their age.”
Mr Russell urged locals to raise any concerns they have with trees damaged in the storm to report it through council’s customer service team.
A team of six worked until about 10pm cleaning up the storms trail of destruction, while another dozen workers continued into Tuesday clearing the debris.
Suzie Hunt saw the gum trees lose a significant amount of branches in front of her Brisbane St home.
“Some branches ended up in the lady’s backyard across the road,” she said. “I’ve never seen branches fly that far.”
Mrs Hunt said she has regularly had to clean up debris from the gums after storms and she wants to see the trees gone.
“I’ve had concerns about the gum trees for years,” she said.
Essential Energy worked went well into Tuesday morning with efforts to return power.
“The storm caused a large number of issues including fallen powerlines, a significant amount of debris in the power network and a damaged power pole and transformer,” spokesperson David Crough said.