Ripped off roofs, flying metal, and a lightning-induced building collapse has left residents of Nevertire emotionally frayed.<\/p>\n
The town is tired as residents try to recover from a wild storm that tore through the community of 135 about 100 kilometres north-west of Dubbo on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“We were just doing some computer work, next thing we got this big crashing lightning strike right over the top of us,” Nevertire local Sid Kinsey said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Kinseys were sitting at a table with a friend when the roof came crashing in. (ABC Western Plains: Catherine James)<\/p>\n
Seconds later, Mr Kinsey said a plank of timber crashed through his roof above the lounge room.<\/p>\n
“It was like a missile. The noise was something unreal.”<\/p>\n
A mountain of wood and iron splintered through the house and glass and other debris was strewn down the hallway to the front door.<\/p>\n
“The rubbish was from the shed 200 yards away. It scared the crap out of us, but there was nothing we could do,” Mr Kinsey said.<\/p>\n
None of the three occupants in the house at the time, who had been sitting next to the lounge room, were hurt. \u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A piece of the large plank of timber that crashed through the Kinsey’s ceiling. (ABC Western Plains: Catherine James)<\/p>\n
It was the second major storm to batter the town in less than a year.<\/p>\n
Nine months ago, severe winds ripped a roof off at least one building in Nevertire.<\/p>\n
The previous weather event also hit the Kinseys hard.<\/p>\n
“It took months and months to clean up,” Mr Kinsey’s wife Maria said.<\/p>\n
“We had to have dryers for the water that had blown in under the carpet.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The roof of Sid and Maria Kinsey’s home was split open by a large beam of timber. (ABC Western Plains: Catherine James)<\/p>\n
Wednesday’s storm tore up at least six properties, and cut the town’s electricity for 24 hours after it struck suddenly around midday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Several buildings sustained major damage, including this newly-renovated commercial building on the main street. (ABC Western Plains: Catherine James)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The roof was completely torn off by the ferocious storm. (ABC Western Plains: Catherine James)<\/p>\n
Similar property damage occurred in the nearby towns of Narromine, Wongarbon, and Dubbo.<\/p>\n
But for many Nevertire residents, it is the emotional damage that is becoming hardest to repair.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know what Nevertire’s done to the world, but we’re having to get used to these stormy days,” local publican Dympna Lawler said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nevertire Hotel publican Dympna Lawler says the pub was unscathed.\u00a0 (ABC Western Plains: Catherine James)<\/p>\n
Warren Shire mayor Greg Whitely said that level of devastation can feel more intense in a small community.<\/p>\n
In a town four streets by five streets wide, everyone knows someone whose home has been damaged.<\/p>\n
The repeated trauma is seeping in.<\/p>\n
“There’s probably 60 houses [in town] and there’s been six complete de-roofs,” Councillor Whitely said.<\/p>\n
“It’s psychologically draining.”<\/p>\n
On the bright side, the mayor said, there were no major injuries.<\/p>\n
But he said another challenge for small towns like Nevertire is the limited financial assistance available.<\/p>\n
To qualify for natural disaster support from the state government, the disaster response must cost more than $240,000.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Workers reconnected powerlines brought down by the sudden severe winds in the storm.\u00a0 (ABC Western Plains: Catherine James)<\/p>\n
In effect, this means tiny communities like Nevertire either have to hope they are included in a large-scale disaster declaration, or rely on private insurance.<\/p>\n
Cr Whitely said neither option was appealing for people who also had to focus on picking up the pieces.<\/p>\n
“It is later on when battling with insurance companies and things like that the stress will become more and more,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It will be a complicated process because some of the insurance claims from the previous event haven’t been fixed as yet.”<\/p>\n
In a town of about 140 people, everyone knows someone whose home has been damaged. (Supplied: Sean Serdity)<\/p>\n
NSW SES crews and council workers began clearing debris from Nevertire on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The disaster comes as a week of extreme weather across NSW heralds a catastrophic start<\/a> to both storm and bushfire season.<\/p>\n Winds faster than 100 kilometres per hour were recorded, killing at least one man<\/a> and leaving tens of thousands without power<\/a>.<\/p>\n Statewide, the SES has responded to more than 2,250 calls for help in the last 24 hours as a mammoth clean-up effort continues.<\/p>\n After surviving yet another storm, residents will now need to survive the process of filing insurance claims. (ABC Western Plains: Lily Plass)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ripped off roofs, flying metal, and a lightning-induced building collapse has left residents of Nevertire emotionally frayed. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13347,177296,51653,43,44096,177297,44,130734,28331,17711,41,39,42,40,13060],"class_list":["post-313135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-buildings","tag-damaged","tag-dubbo","tag-headlines","tag-lightning","tag-nevertire","tag-news","tag-roof","tag-second","tag-storm","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-town"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n