Remembering the 2010 Lennox Head tornado through the Northern Star archives

On June 3 2010, a tornado wiped out homes and livelihoods in Lennox Head. Almost 12 years later, their stories remain fresh in their minds as the region battles a recovery that dwarfs the devastation of that day.

The front page of the Northern Star on June 4 2010 showed the moment that a tornado ripped through Lennox Head.

On the cover, it shows the quote from a survivor, which described the horror of the freak event.

“We could see from the house all the debris, it looked like paper but it turned out it was people’s roofs and stuff like that,” it said.

A waterspout which sounded like a jumbo jet crossed into the town at around 7.30am on June 3.

Winds in excess of 150 kilometres an hour flipped caravans and destroyed 12 homes within minutes but miraculously, nobody was killed.

The damage suffered throughout the town was devastating and it left more than two dozen people homeless.

The tornado slammed into the coastal town and then moved north near Byron Bay before heading out to the ocean again.

In the whirlwind time that the twister hit, a litany of terror fell on residents as they took refuge in their homes, were stuck in their cars, dodged falling power lines and battled flash-floods.

Picture of the Lennox Head Tornado . Photo / Supplied

It was a shock to the system of the quiet Northern Rivers beach town.

In an update from the Bureau of Meteorology, severe weather meteorologist Andrew Haigh said the “fast rotating column of air” was almost 100 metres wide.

After the shock settled, Premier Kristina Keneally flew to Lennox Head to inspect the damage and declared it a natural disaster zone as she walked the streets with then-SES Commissioner Murray Kear.

Premier of NSW, Kristina Keneally, SES commissioner Murray Kear and Minister for Emergency Services, Steve Whan inspect the damage caused by a Tornado that ripped through the Lennox Head Caravan Park.

The worst scene of the damage was found at Lake Ainsworth Caravan Park where vans and massive vehicles had been smashed and sandwiched together.

It was reported at the time that six people alone had been injured at the caravan park.

“It’s amazing that no one was seriously hurt or killed,” Keneally said.

“Emergency service workers are used to seeing pretty bad damage, but after talking with them... I think the scale and the ferocity of the tornado has shocked them.”

Stewart Street resident Trevor Hickey was rendered homeless after he stared from his kitchen at the tornado racing towards him.

Within two minutes, his life changed forever.

Trevor Hickey survey his damaged home.

“My wife, Elaine, was still asleep in bed,” he said at the time.

“I raced into the bedroom, grabbed her out of bed and pulled her down on to the floor.

“I threw a doona on top of her to try and protect her from what was coming. She had no idea what was going on.

Trevor Hickey couldn’t believe his home had been completely destroyed.

“But there was this huge, roaring noise, I can’t even explain it”.

His two-storey home was damaged and his roof was destroyed.

Five years after he bought his new home, it lay in a massive pile of rubble and debris.

Despite the horror, the community bounced back. Janene Murray was receiving offers of help from neighbours and fly-in helpers to recover the pieces of her family home.

Foster Street resident Janene Murray.

At the time she said, “that’s what the people of Lennox Head are like”.

“People brought over tarps because we had lost our entire roof. Others brought soup and food and offered us a place to stay”.

Residents who were impacted had to largely rely on their insurance companies to help them with payouts.

More than ten years later, insurance for natural disasters and floods in the Northern Rivers are unaffordable, and according to new studies, are set to be uninsurable by the end of the decade.