Massive fallen tree smashes onto Fullarton Rd, causing Mercedes College power outage and traffic chaos

A major road is set to be closed for up to 24 hours and power is out at one of Adelaide’s top schools after a 20m-tall gum toppled over in the night.

A major road is set to be closed for up to 24 hours and power is out at one of Adelaide’s top schools after an ancient gum tree came crashing down on a busy inner southern suburbs intersection.

Emergency crews were called to the intersection of Fullarton Rd and Maitland St at Mitcham after the alarm was first raised just after 1am on Monday.

Crews are expected to be at the scene most of the day cutting up the giant tree – measuring about 20m tall with a girth of about 2m – after it pulled down powerlines and blocked a huge section of Fullarton Rd.

The incident has left Mercedes College without power. Picture: Sam Lowe

Surrounding homes are also blacked out, and Fullarton Rd is closed to traffic. Picture: Sam Lowe

Fullarton Rd is closed to all traffic in both directions and motorists should avoid the area and use an alternate route.

A text from Mercedes College to the school community said it would be without power for the entire day. “If possible, please keep students at home. If not possible, the College will be operating a modified day.”

Text message sent by Mercedes College. Picture: Supplied

The text also said the year 9 retreat at the Monastery would continue but the year 12 exam would be postponed.

Some students at Mercedes College turned up early for footy training but by about 8am they were told it was recommended students stay home.

“There’s no power, so there’s no internet, but people are still able to go to school if their parents are at work,” said year 11 student Poppy Howard.

“We always walk past that tree so it’s a bit weird to see.”

A woman who lives close to the scene said she hadn’t heard the “big bang or anything” when the tree fell, but found out the morning after.

“I went to make a coffee and then there was just no power,” she said.

More than 200 other properties in the Springfield and Mitcham areas have been affected by the outage.

SA Power Networks external affairs manager Cecilia Schutz the priority on Monday was to safely reroute power to impacted customers, including Mercedes College.

“We are working to reroute supply to reconnect those customers in the short term, and over the coming days there will be additional work needed to reinstate the infrastructure as it was before today,” she said.

“At the moment the priority is safely getting power back on for customers.

“There will be some customers that remain without supply today, we don’t have an official restoration time at this point.”

According to Traffic SA, Fullarton Rd could be closed in both directions for 24 hours near Maitland St as the clean-up continues and SA Power Networks work to fix damage to infrastructure.

Originally published as Massive fallen tree smashes onto Fullarton Rd, causing Mercedes College power outage and traffic chaos