A Perth suburb is cleaning up after an apparent tornado tore the roof off a luxury home, flung solar panels over backyard fences and ripped out trees.
The wild weather — hail, winds and rain — was captured on video when a whirling spout slammed City Beach with its multimillion-dollar homes.
Western Australian Planning Minister John Carey told Perth Now that resident were caught by surprise.
“These are scenes that we associate with the US,” he said.
“To see mini-tornadoes is quite extraordinary. We are relieved and happy that no one has been seriously hurt.
“My understanding is there is about 50 SES volunteers that are out assisting and, of course, we will get further updates.
“But it is extraordinary to see these kinds of scenes. It did create incredible havoc and, of course, noting that this happened last year in Bunbury.”
BOM meteorologist Miriam Bradbury said the weather bureau was looking at the footage to determine whether the “funnel-like cloud” was a tornado, water spout or a different cloud formation.
“We’ll need to take a closer look at it today and assess the damage in particular because tornadoes leave very particular patterns in their damage,” she told Channel Nine’s Today.
“What’s worth remembering is thunderstorms, even non-severe thunderstorms that don’t produce tornados, do have the capacity to bring really gusty, erratic winds that can bring damage even if they’re not producing those tornados.”
The roof was reportedly torn off the main bedroom of a multimillion-dollar home while the family of four was sitting on the couch.
“I heard a huge bang and I thought all the windows would implode,” one family member told Perth Now.
City Beach artist John Major said he was in his shed when he heard a bang that sounded like a plane crash. Then his wife, who was watching TV in the house, began screaming.
He told Perth Now a huge piece of wood had smashed against the corner pillar of the house.
“If that piece of wood had gone through that window, my wife would be dead.”
One resident told ABC radio it felt like the house “was about to fly away”.
“I literally just looked up through the window and dead set saw a tornado,” she told ABC Radio Perth.
“There was like a column of swirling wind, there was things flying in the air, bits of roof flying, tree branches, rubbish and it was all quite high up in the air, above the tree line I would say.
“When I saw the bits of roof flying, I was worried it was going to come through the window, so I actually ducked under the table at one stage.”
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