Mornington Peninsula storm: Falling tree just misses Balnarring driver
Meagan Murphy was just seconds from disaster when wild winds slammed a tree onto the road in front of her car. The Balnarring woman shares her story.
South East
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Frankston SES has received more than 1400 calls for help to deal with fallen trees and building damage as winds up to 91km/h lashed the Mornington Peninsula.
Three people — including a four-year-old boy — have been killed as wild winds tore through Melbourne on Thursday.
Up to 3000 people across the Mornington Peninsula region were also without power for several hours until about 9.30pm.
One woman was lucky to escape serious injury when a tree slammed into the ground in front of her car.
Meagan Murphy said she had “never been so scared” when the large tree crashed to the ground as she was driving along Coolart Rd near the Myers Rd intersection in Balnarring.
Ms Murphy said she had slowed to 60km/h because of the storm.
“It came down in front of me,” she said.
“I had to slam the brakes on. I can’t stop thinking about if I was doing 80 I could of been under the tree.”
The tree was one of many ripped from the ground when the storm front tore though the region about 5pm on Thursday.
According to a weather station at Cerberus, winds reached 91km/h at 5.21pm.
Heather Phillips posted on social media that the winds through Somerville were “cyclonic” about 5pm.
Hastings SES was also kept busy responding to calls for help including one for a Mt Martha chicken farm when a shed roof blew off.
The damage put 15,000 birds at risk at the property near the corner of Inga Parade and Dunns Rd.
Crews were also called to help move large fallen trees in Mt Martha, Mt Eliza and Hastings.
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