Remembering the 1999 hailstorm that shattered Sydney
On April 14, 1999, half a million tonnes of giant hail pelted Greater Sydney, smashing entire suburbs and leaving the biggest damage bill since severe weather records began.
NSW
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It was the mother of all storms, a terrifying weather event that dumped 500,000 tonnes of hail across a 160km path and Sydney in tatters.
On the evening of April 14, 1999, with no warning, the costliest hailstorm in NSW’s history hit the southern, eastern and inner suburbs of Sydney.
Hail the size of cricket balls blasted through roofs and windows at 200 km/h as the supercell thunderstorm wrought a $1.7 billion path of destruction through 85 suburbs.
More than 24,000 homes, 23 aircraft, 2800 commercial and industrial buildings and 70,000 vehicles suffered major damage.
The 1999 Sydney hailstorm remains the costliest natural disaster in Australian insurance history. The damage cost to insurers was $5.6 billion (normalised to 2017 figures), according to the Insurance Council of Australia.
By comparison, Australia’s second costliest natural disaster was Cyclone Tracy in 1974 with an insurance loss of $5.04 billion (normalised to 2017 figures).
A TURNING POINT
The catastrophe was a watershed moment for emergency response agencies and led to more advanced severe storm modelling and improved risk management for hail storms. It also transformed the SES, which at the time didn’t even have a centralised phone number.
The April storm caught the city off guard because in every respect, it was unusual — from the timing to the path it tracked and the giant stones recorded from 9cm to 13cm.
Most supercells hit during storm season from September to March usually in the afternoon and in 1999, only five April hail storms had been recorded in Sydney in 200 years.
The atmospheric conditions earlier that day also gave few clues as to what was to come.
While not unfavourable for storms, conditions didn’t warrant major concern and the Sydney forecasting centre of the Bureau of Meteorology did not issue severe weather warnings during its development
The first reports of hail came in at 4.30pm near Wollongong, but forecasters watching the storm as it moved out to sea assumed the danger had passed.
FREAK CHANGE
The lone duty forecaster at the BOM, Evan Bathe, told The Daily Telegraph at the time that he was on the phone when “suddenly it grew”.
“I was watching it on the radar when it moved out to sea,” he said. “All of a sudden I noticed another cell developing over Bundeena.
“It happened so quickly, it just moved through Botany Bay and started coming down over Randwick in rather large lumps. I was the only one here and didn’t even have time to put out a warning.”
When the storm moved out to sea around 4.25pm, it hit the Tasmans’ warm waters and it’s structure changed abruptly. It became a high precipitation supercell moving towards Sydney and by the time it reached Kensington, it peaked in intensity.
Much of the building stock, which was pre-1930s with terracotta tiles and asbestos roofs, didn’t stand a chance. Hail smashed roof tiles, skylights, solar panels, windows and the weight of the damage and rain collapsed ceilings.
In some streets every house was damaged, with Kensington, Kingsford, Botany, Mascot, Randwick and Paddington the worst affected suburbs.
According to Emergency Management Australia, 130,000 people were impacted, 500 left homeless, 50 injured and one man died due to a lightning strike.
The damage was so severe in part because the storm hit densely populated areas.
Had it hit earlier, when people were heading home, injuries would have been higher as happened in the January 1 1947 Sydney Hailstorm which left hundreds hurt on Bondi Beach.
THE RESPONSE
Emergency organisations and the SES faced an enormous task responding to the catastrophe and sections of the media quickly criticised its efforts.
Media clamoured for the Army to be brought in and the SES, which didn’t have a specialist media team at the time, struggled to get in front of the narrative.
Critics claimed by failing to bring in the Army, the SES was ignoring “appropriate professional help” and under-responding to the severity of the situation.
But SES volunteers were experts at storm damage, it’s the bulk of the work they do, and when the Army sent a small contingent, resources had to be diverted to train them up.
The criticism hit volunteers’ morale hard but despite that, they acted quickly and worked for close to six months to help impacted residents.
It was the biggest test the SES had ever faced.
AFTERMATH
No previous severe storm event had produced the scale of damage as the 1999 storm.
Hail storms weren’t unusual in Sydney but the ferocity caught the insurance industry off guard.
Many initially had called it a freak event but research soon showed it could happen again.
Hailstorms are one of the biggest perils in terms of losses for insurance companies in Australia. Extreme weather events which hit urban areas, can incur large insurance losses well beyond an insurer’s retention layer, triggering reinsurance placements.
A substantial portion of the AUD$1.7 billion loss from the 1999 Sydney Hailstorm was borne by the reinsurance market.
A spokesman for the Insurance Council of Australia said since that time, there has been improved risk management for hailstorm mitigation. Hail nets have become a common measure at car dealerships, as well as car import and distribution hubs.
There have also been improvements in technology for hail repair to vehicles, weather modelling, and more resilient materials in building construction.
As climate change is likely to increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, the Insurance Council of Australia says urgent climate action is critical to reduce the impacts of such events and prevent parts of the country becoming uninsurable.
BETTER RESPONSES
The Black Summer bushfires and recent floods revealed just how agile emergency response agencies have become since the 1999 storm.
After the warning failure, the severe weather modelling and warnings systems drastically improved, and the BOM, SES and Emergency Management Australia developed strategies to raise awareness about storms, storm warnings and preparatory and response activity.
NSW State Emergency Service Assistant Commissioner Nicole Hogan said the event led to several improvements within the service, including the creation of a 24/7 call centre and a centralised phone number – 132 500.
It also began a transition away from paper-based processes to digital ones, to improve record-keeping and tracking of requests for assistance.
“Given how quickly the storm hit Sydney, NSW SES strengthened its relationship with the Bureau of Meteorology to better understand potential future severe weather and plan accordingly,” she said.
“Off the back of this weather event, NSW SES also established a dedicated media team. This section not only convey vital safety messaging and public information when storms hit, but also aim to share preparedness messaging to communities.”
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