Sutherland Shire bears the brunt of Sydney storm supercell
A Sydney school has been significantly damaged just days before school goes back for 2020 after storms ravaged the Sutherland Shire. Trains, homes and businesses also took a significant beating when the supercell tore through.
St George Shire Standard
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A Sydney school has been significantly damaged just days before school goes back for 2020 after a violent supercell storm tore through the southern suburbs.
Sylvania Heights Public School took a beating when storms ravaged the Sutherland Shire on Monday, tearing up trees, powerlines and roofs.
“Due to strong winds in southern Sydney on Monday, a tree on the grounds of Sylvania Heights Public School fell onto a classroom building, causing significant damage to the roof structure,” the spokesman said.
“There will be no impact on students returning back to school next week – the school has spare accommodation and classes will be relocated accordingly.
A timeline to repair the damage will be established after a full assessment of the impacted building.
A Sydney Trains spokeswoman confirmed severe weather caused several incidents on the T4 Eastern Suburbs and Illawarra train line which led to widespread delays.
“In a major operation, a tree had to be removed from a train after it fell onto a carriage and a signal indicator between Sutherland and Kirrawee stations,” the spokeswoman said.
“More than 300 customers were safely transferred from the train onto replacement buses, with repairs and safety clearances requiring work well into the night.”
No-one was injured in the incident and workers safely assisted passengers from the stricken train.
In a separate incident, a train was stuck near Miranda for several hours after a branch blew onto the tracks.
“A tree branch caused damage to the underside of a train at Miranda after being blown onto the tracks, with the train unable to move for a number of hours while inspections and repair work was undertaken,” the spokeswoman said.
The disruptions began when the roof of a nearby building tore off and fell onto tracks at Caringbah, causing trains to be backed up into St George and forcing passengers onto replacement buses.
“At Caringbah, debris was blown onto the tracks and overhead wiring, requiring services to be stopped while the area was cleared,” the spokeswoman said.
“The combination of issues caused significant delays, with train services replaced by buses between Sutherland and Waterfall.”
In yet another incident, a widespread Ausgrid outage knocked out Opal card readers at Caringbah on Tuesday morning, though service has now been restored.