{"id":792078,"date":"2026-10-04T22:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T22:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/792078\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T22:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T22:14:15","slug":"ses-responds-to-severe-damage-to-homes-and-businesses-after-tornado-hits-ulladulla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/792078\/","title":{"rendered":"SES responds to severe damage to homes and businesses after tornado hits Ulladulla"},"content":{"rendered":"

A tornado that ripped through the CBD of Ulladulla on the NSW South Coast on Saturday has left homes uninhabitable and severe damage in its wake.<\/p>\n

The State Emergency Service (SES) said the tornado, which reached a wind-gust front of 98 kilometres per hour about 1pm, impacted 15 properties.<\/p>\n

More than half a dozen were severely damaged and two of them deemed uninhabitable, the residents forced to relocate to the homes of friends and family.<\/p>\n

SES Deputy Incident Commander Tracy Provest said it had a “devastating” impact.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The NSW State Emergency Service responded to 34 reports of damage in Ulladulla. (Supplied: Edwin Fletcher)<\/p>\n

“We’ve had quite a number of homes where walls are gone or the roof has peeled off or tiles are on the other side of the road,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve had trees down come through houses.”<\/p>\n

Street signs were also torn out of the ground and uprooted trees and falling branches fell on cars.<\/p>\n

“Amazingly, nobody was injured,” Ms Provest said.<\/p>\n

“Even the couple of trees that came down on cars, the people who were in the cars managed to get out.<\/p>\n

“[One] lady was across the road buying fish and chips and she watched a tree come down on her car. She was so thankful that she wasn’t in it.”Loading…<\/p>\n

Ms Provest said she had never seen anything like it.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been here since 2003, and I think for a lot of people who live locally, this is definitely a first,” she said.<\/p>\n

“One fellow had a small tinny on a trailer at the front of his house, it flipped the tinny off the trailer, lifted the trailer and knocked it into his car.”<\/p>\n

\"image<\/p>\n

The tornado ripped roofs off homes, leaving two uninhabitable. (Supplied: NSW SES Ulladulla)<\/p>\n

The service received 34 calls for help within Ulladulla, with all jobs finalised by Sunday afternoon after crews from as far as Yass were called in as back-up.<\/p>\n

Across the state, 438 calls for assistance were received in the 24-hour period.<\/p>\n

The town also received 24 millimetres of rain between 9am on Saturday and 9am on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

SES crews worked across Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning to repair damage to several homes and businesses. (Supplied: SES)<\/p>\n

Local captures vision of tornado<\/p>\n

Brad Collins was driving in town with his father when he saw the storm unfold and captured a video on his smart phone as the clouds formed into a vortex.<\/p>\n

“It developed around us and it was that quick, the next minute it was in front of us,” he said.<\/p>\n

“There was stuff flying in the air \u2026 then it was all over.”<\/p>\n

He described it as “surreal” and “crazy”, later driving past several homes with roofs torn off and one car crushed by a tree.<\/p>\n

CCTV from a local cafe<\/a> showed heavy rain and strong winds sweep through violently, sending umbrellas flying into the harbour.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

The Bureau of Meteorology said the tornado was classified as “sub-severe” but was a unique event.<\/p>\n

“For the coast of New South Wales, it’s quite unusual to see tornadoes like that,” meteorologist Tristan Sumarna said.<\/p>\n

“Even though it was sub-severe, there was definitely some impact.”<\/p>\n

\"SES<\/p>\n

SES volunteers from the Ulladulla unit and across the state responded to the damage. (Supplied: NSW SES Ulladulla)<\/p>\n

Ms Provest praised the local clean-up effort, saying Shoalhaven Council and NSW Police assisted with the roads as well as traffic direction, while multiple volunteers pitched in.<\/p>\n

“A couple were directly impacted, and other had businesses impacted, and they’ve all been out helping anyway,” she said.<\/p>\n

Festival paused for storm<\/p>\n

A 2-hour drive north, in Wollongong, the Yours and Owls Festival at Flagstaff Hill was briefly paused when the storm rolled in on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

Festival-goers told the ABC they were directed to seek shelter under tents for about 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

Victoria Schuck was in the crowd and said despite the interruption, they made the most of it, holding a sing-a-long under the tents before the show went on.<\/p>\n

“I think it added to it; it gives you a good story to tell and it was a lot of fun,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tornado that ripped through the CBD of Ulladulla on the NSW South Coast on Saturday has left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[169560,39029,1397,260759,90,135558,1054,109836,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-792078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-clean-up","tag-damage","tag-environment","tag-roofs-off","tag-science","tag-ses","tag-storm","tag-tornado","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}