‘Spider apocalypse’ hits Victoria amid flood carnage
Spiderwebs have blanketed parts of Gippsland, showing even insects are attempting to flee the flood carnage.
Spiderwebs have blanketed parts of Gippsland in Victoria’s far east, showing even insects are attempting to flee carnage left behind by widespread flooding in the region.
The chilling white pictures come after thousands of Traralgon residents were told to evacuate their homes last week amid flash flooding caused by storms which drenched huge parts of Victoria on Wednesday night and Thursday.
Photographer Lotje McDonald of Longford — about 215km east of Melbourne located in Gippsland — said she was alerted to the webs on her way back from helping some stranded wallabies on Monday.
“It’s almost like it rained spiders. (The webs) are all in the grass and the trees on the side of the road,” the 58-year-old said.
“It is the third time I have seen this. It happens after we have floods,” she said.
Ms McDonald estimated the cloudlike scene stretched about a kilometre on the South Gippsland highway between Longford and Sale. She said after spotting the webs on Monday, many had dispersed in the wind by Tuesday and the “billions” of spiders crept away into the grass.
Concerns power yet to return
The spider “apocalypse” — as described by one user on social media platform Reddit — came after news some of the 20,000 homes without power in Victoria may not be back on the grid by the weekend, more than one week after wild weather ripped through the state.
Emergency management Victoria commissioner Andrew Crisp said authorities were still assessing the damage of the storms last Wednesday which killed two people in flood waters.
“We know that is really, really tough for those people that are still off power but I really do have to acknowledge the work of the distribution businesses when you consider at the peak we had more than 300,000 homes off power,” Mr Crisp said.
We’re proud to stand with our emergency services colleagues to support those affected by flooding in recent days. In this clip, you’ll see our drone crew assisting @VicSES & @AmbulanceVic rescue a man stranded in the Traralgon floods. Thanks to everyone involved & stay safe, VIC. pic.twitter.com/uUGgWBdwJv
— Life Saving Victoria (@LifeSavingVic) June 12, 2021
“(There is) a solid commitment to get those people back to normal as soon as possible,” he said.
Authorities have assessed about 70 per cent of the damage from Trentham in the state’s northwest to Tralalgon in the southeast.
Mr Crisp said out of the 1195 impact assessments completed, 98 homes are “uninhabitable” and 86 are habitable but sustained “fairly significant damage”.
The mop up came after the weary state battled through a two-week lock down due to a Covid-19 outbreak and a third of continued restrictions.
Mr Crisp said he knew some people were frustrated their power had not returned and telecommunications remained down in parts of the state, but wanted to assure the community authorities have worked as fast as possible.
Acting police and emergency management minister Danny Pearson denied representatives of the state government had neglected some communities who said they felt forgotten.
“It is a balancing act. You wouldn’t want first responders having to shepherd me through flood zones or areas where trees are down when their first job should be to support the community in need,” he said.
“We have struck the balance right.”
Power station flood fears
Authorities also revealed yesterday they feared record rain could flood a Latrobe Valley power station — responsible for delivering power to a quarter of the state — after cracks appeared in the brown coal mine.
Mr Crisp said residential homes would not be affected if the Yallourn power station were to shutdown, and said there was enough backup supply for seven to 10 days in the event it does.
Chaotic weather will not return leading into the weekend, but forecast rain and wind may hamper clean up efforts.
Mr Crisp said up to 30mm of rain could fall on southwest Gippsland area with gusts of up to 50km forecast in the east of the state, closer to metropolitan Melbourne.
“We know that’s a concern because there are so many trees that are still likely to fall. A lot of work has been done to assess those killer trees. We are not through this,” he said.
Live wires, fallen trees
Live wires, fallen trees and power outages continued to wreak havoc on the community in Emerald, a small town in the Dandenong Ranges about 45km southeast of Melbourne.
Local SES unit controller Ben Owen said they urgently needed more volunteers on top of their existing 40 to help clean up the hard-hit area.
“Ideally – you can see the number of jobs on our board is already at 900 for this six months – we need close to 100 volunteers to effectively service from here, to Olinda, to Ferny Creek, Belgrave and Sassafras,” he said.
“Historically we are one or two of the busiest units in the state so we need the volunteers on the ground.”
Flood warnings are still in place for south Gippsland in the state’s far east.
At least $87,000 in immediate hardship payments have been paid as a result of the storms.
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