Christmas Day tornado: 15 minutes of terror on the Gold Coast

It seemed to come out of nowhere, catching families celebrating Christmas off guard. For many at the heart of the storm, they weren’t sure they would escape the next 15 minutes alive.

It’s 9.30pm on Christmas Day.

On a street in Helensvale, a man looks out his window.

It takes him a couple of second to process what he has just seen.

A large rectangular object has just passed overhead, clearing the street and then his house.

It dawns on him what he’s just witnessed – the roof of his neighbour’s home, airborne, flying away.

In an Upper Coomera holiday home, Lavanya Prakash is frantic. Her son was outside when the storm began. Phones are out, and she can’t get to the lower part of the property to find out if he made it inside on time.

In the meantime, the upstairs roof has shorn away.

It would be an agonising wait to find out if her son had survived.

She tears up at the memory. “For those 45 minutes I did not know if my son was alive.”

An Upper Coomera holiday house that was destroyed by the Christmas Day storm while families from Sydney and Melbourne were staying. Picture: Keith Woods.

Ms Prakash was among a group of families from Sydney and Melbourne who had decided to gather on the Gold Coast for Christmas.

Prabhurat Shanmugaraju and wife Vani saw debris from the storm shear through their car.

They had all hoped for a restful break after a year of hard work. Now they are left to deal with insurance companies – and traumatised children.

“It was really a very terrorising 15 minutes.”

Still to learn the fate of his relative is nearby resident Glenn Davidson. His mother, sister and three nieces are in a house on his land at the top of a hill. It will be 7.15am the next morning before anyone can reach them.

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Tanya Jamieson volunteers with the Coomera Valley Rural Fire Brigade.

She experienced cyclones while living in Cairns for eight years.

“But I’ve never seen anything like this”, she says.

The Rural Fire Brigade team are exhausted. From Boxing Day, they’ve been working from first light to late at night, clearing logs from roads and driveways. The first steps on the long road to recovery.

The biggest immediate problem for many – the lack of power.

Energex say experienced field staff have never seen anything like the scale of destruction inflicted on the Gold Coast network.

It’s “unprecedented” they say. “There is just such severe damage, and so much of it.

“Everywhere we look, there’s more damage.”

Glen Searle, Tanya Jamieson and Jono Rossi at the Coomera Valley Rural Fire Brigade station. Volunteers have been working from early morning to late at night to help locals every day since the Christmas Day storm hit. Picture: Keith Woods.

Making the loss of power all the worse was the heat.

Some people slept in cars, desperate for the airconditioning. Some found another solution.

“I actually slept on tiles last night. Coolest I’ve been in days. Couldn’t walk for an hour, but all good.”

Long-time residents said they had never seen anything like it.

“I was in my bedroom down low on the floor waiting for it to pass,” Oxenford resident Graciela Castle said.

“I have never seen anything like this in my life. Everything has been damaged. A tree has come down on the house. My son’s granny flat has lost the roof.

“I’m just happy that me and the family, children next door are OK.”

Prabhurat Shanmugaraju and wife Vani from Sydney with their car. Debris from the Upper Coomera holiday home they were staying at with friends smashed though the sunroof and into the passenger seat during the Christmas Day storm. Picture: Keith Woods.

Mayor Tom Tate said the city had never seen such high winds.

“We’ve never had a level of cyclone category 2 up in this northern area,” he said. “So the older homes are copping it.”

The nearest equivalent event that any could think of was a tornado that swept through Lennox Head in June 2010.

It was severe, but given the smaller population, the damage was far less widespread.

Only two people were injured on that occasion.

The Gold Coast would not be so lucky.

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As dawn broke on Boxing Day, dazed residents of the most severely impacted suburbs emerged from battered homes to see the damage in daylight.

What greeted them was an extraordinary sight.

Debris everywhere. Enormous gum trees lying across roads, in gardens. Some through the roofs of houses.

Suburban streets made impassable by fallen trees.

Some got straight to work, firing up chainsaws to clear their streets.

Others busied themselves checking on neighbours.

Helensvale Primary School was smashed by a ferocious storm on Christmas night the storm leaving a trail of destruction and 1 woman losing her life. Pics Adam Head

For many, there was no phone or internet signals.

For those who could receive news, there were sad tidings.

Robyn Carman, 59, had died on Discovery Drive in Helensvale, crushed by a falling tree as she made her way home after her car broke down. She was just a few hundred metres from her house.

A stunned Mayor Tom Tate was among those to express their shock.

“When I heard about it, it just floored me,” he said.

Premier Steven Miles also paid tribute to a woman described by neighbours as a “lovely lady”.

“(Monday night’s) storms in the southeast were devastating, some of the worst many locals have ever seen,” he said.

“I’m particularly saddened to hear of the death of a woman on the Gold Coast, my thoughts are with her family in this tragic time.”

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Amid the carnage, stories of hope and resilience also began to emerge.

The small local supermarket in Oxenford was one of the only places in the area to still have power, but lacked the internet for its EFTPOS terminals, where kindly strangers paid the bills of locals with no access to cash.

The people who brought food and water to communities cut off by fallen trees and powerlines.

The SES and fire crews who had only just returned from helping communities affected by Cyclone Jasper in north Queensland who answered the call and made for the Gold Coast.

“There’s an amazing amount of people who are giving up their Christmas break to help our community recover,” Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon said.

Len Latours inside his destroyed home on Mount Tamborine.

Many of the SES vehicles that arrived on Gold Coast streets bore bright yellow NSW number plates.

Their livery showed they had come from bases in places like Dubbo and Port Macquarie.

Despite the help, there were many residents, especially in less densely populated areas, who were left waiting for assistance.

Many questioned why the army had not been called in.

“We have been at it for 24 hours on the chainsaws chopping through power poles and trying to get trees off the road,” Tamborine Village resident Callum Davison said.

“I can’t keep doing this. We are older people here, in the heat, no food. I mean, where the hell is the army?

“How can this not be an emergency? You just have to use your eyes.”

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As of 11am on Friday, the majority of residents had their power restored after around-the-clock work by Energex crews.

“This is the biggest restoration job we’ve faced, and our people have rallied for their communities, over a less than festive season for many,” an Energex statement said.

“We thank you for your patience, support and warm wishes for our crews in heatwave conditions.”

But 27,000 homes and businesses were still going without energy.

Vast piles of green waste lined streets.

And a city still reeling from an unprecedented level of destruction was on tenterhooks, amid warnings the latest round of storm activity may not be far away.

“Saturday is the D Day for more storms,” Mayor Tate said.

“125km/h winds, large hail and severe rain.

“I would rather err on the side of caution and if it turns out to be a fizzer then that’s great. (But) we’re getting ready and we’re rolling up our sleeves.”

Follow @keithjwoods

Originally published as Christmas Day tornado: 15 minutes of terror on the Gold Coast