“Luckily, they have all escaped, a few minor injuries,” he said.
“There is also significant damage to other buildings in this area from this freak weather event.
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“There are multiple power lines down which is making it difficult for us to access the area.”
It comes less than a month after a freak tornado damaged more than 100 homes, ripping off roofs, collapsing walls and sucking up debris into the sky at Bunbury.
The town’s prison, a sporting centre, other community buildings and infrastructure were badly damaged but no one was seriously injured.
Department of Fire and Emergency Services incident controller Nathan Hall told residents at a community meeting on Sunday that thousands of properties remain without power including nearly 6000 in the City of Bunbury.
“We currently have around 60 volunteer SES personnel currently working on the incident. We are primarily trying to focus on critical infrastructure and identifying the damage,” he said.
Premier Roger Cook said Bunbury had borne the brunt of the weather event with significant damage to local businesses.
“It looks like a nasty blow, Bunbury was right in the firing line last night of this big storm,” he said.
Wind gusts of more than 100 km/h were recorded at Rottnest Island early Sunday morning.
A Bureau of Meteorology spokesman said severe conditions should ease throughout most areas by late Sunday morning as the front moves inland.
“Gusty west to southwesterly winds are expected to continue about the coastal strip from about Mandurah to Albany today, persisting the damaging wind gust risk until later this evening,” he said.
A community meeting will be held on Sunday at 1pm at the City of Bunbury administration building.
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