Tara from Werribee said her partner was lifted about 30 centimetres off the ground when he went outside during heavy wind and rain to try to save some outdoor electrical equipment under their pergola.
“This big wind came from nowhere and ripped off my pergola like a can of sardines,” Tara said. “My partner got lifted and dropped, while me and my kids watched from the window. It was terrifying. It is literally the stuff from movies,” Tara told ABC radio.
She said her partner, who weighs more than 100 kilograms, was bruised and had a slight limp after being dropped back down.
Her family’s three-metre trampoline is now lost somewhere in Werribee, and their pergola roof ended up on power lines in Tarneit Road, with other pieces of the pergola located in neighbours’ houses up to two blocks away, she said.
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“It literally tore through our backyard. I watched this thing like I was watching Twister,” Tara said. “It was terrifying … We were literally in the war path.”
Tara said both her next-door neighbours’ houses had lost tiles from their roofs, and a tree branch had fallen through one of them.
Dianne Taylor from Wydham Vale said she had an eight-metre by three-metre hole in her roof after the storm.
“It was very scary and very quick,” Taylor told the ABC. “I thought our front door was going to come off its hinges.”
BOM said Australia has between five and 10 reports of tornados a year in cities, including Melbourne.
“We do get them in Australia, even though we hear about them far more in America,” Bradbury said. “Tornadoes develop extremely quickly and then dissipate extremely quickly, usually within the space of a couple of minutes.
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