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Thread: Cyclone Seroja

  1. #1
    Ausfish Platinum Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Location
    Kalbarri, WA

    Cyclone Seroja

    Well, I suppose not having our boat ramp any more is the least of our troubles. We are personally OK, the house is unscathed, just lost a side fence when a gumtree toppled, and the clothesline when 3 big old Cocos palms fell in the backyard. All around us , there are roofs gone, and power lines down. Along the water front, well, you've seen the videos no doubt, anything facing due north got absolutely hammered. The storm surge must have been awesome--the wind developed very quickly around 6pm, approx. low tide, water levels were only slightly up late in the afternoon. It got high enough to inundate the VMR base, water was right up into the ceiling, a good 4 metres above tide level. Ripped the floating pontoon finger jetty at the ramp off and threw it, upside down, in the carpark over 3 metres above normal tide line.
    The power went out at 6.30, half an hour into the strong winds, I ducked down to the shed to start the generator--we have lots of outages here at the end of the line, I'm always prepared---it was pretty scary just going 10 metres from the house. And it just got worse from there, house started to shake around 7, windows were bowing in, we went downstairs and crossed our fingers. Thankfully, it didn't last long , peak passed by 740. I was watching it on the BOM radar, eye passed very close to town.
    We ducked outside for a quick look, and couldn't believe our eyes. Everything big was either down or snapped off, driveways blocked, backyard full--out in the street, debris scattered everywhere, sheets of roofing iron, no fallen power lines close by--the closest houses were all intact, everyone OK.
    Of course, daylight showed the full extent of the damage, and we realised just how lucky we were. A half-dozen places within 200 metres of us were unroofed. Our boat was out in a shed which survived, thankfully, there was some damage to boats in the pens but amazingly none sunk. They are not exposed to swell, just storm surge and heavy chop coming down the river. Some actually had damage under their hulls from hitting the tops of the mooring posts VMR and the ramp would have been getting some swell coming in over the reef.
    If you want to know what the area looked like before the cyclone, I did a drone video December last year on a nice morning. Doesn't look like that now.






    some pics of the boat ramp.














    Thats the floating ramp in the carpark upside down, after the rubbish had been cleared.



  2. #2

    Re: Cyclone Seroja

    Scary shit ,glad to see you and family are ok . Matt
    A bad days fishing has got to be better than any day at work......


  3. #3
    Ausfish Gold Member 552Evo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2016
    Location
    Melbourne

    Re: Cyclone Seroja

    Wow
    Glad everyone there is ok
    Thanks for the post/update
    Brings things into perspective doesn’t it.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  4. #4

    Re: Cyclone Seroja

    Best of luck during the cleanup.

  5. #5
    Ausfish Platinum Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Location
    Kalbarri, WA
    Thread Starter

    Re: Cyclone Seroja

    Thanks for the kind words, guys. It's going to take years to rebuild this for some--there are some business owners who are talking about just giving up and leaving. It might seem strange, but they've had a hell of a year. Covid intially killed them--regional lockdown over here from February, the town, which does rely on tourism , was empty. They were going broke. Then the regional lockdowns were lifted around May 10, and internal tourism just exploded. Initially it was great, but the crowds were huge, they couldn't get staff, or, if they could, the staff couldn't get accommodation. And there was no letup, it just went on and on. Places were closing at peak times because the staff couldn't work any more. Quietened a bit, briefly before xmas, then it was on again right up till now. And now, the town is closed, their businesses are wrecked, and it will take a long time to sort it out.

    Someone left a Commodore wagon parked at the other ramp upriver as the storm passed. . They were well backup from the water, but it came high enough to rip their grille/bumper assembly off, send it inland, and bash big gouges down the sides from floating debris.

    I did a bit of drone footage this afternoon, might splice it with some from that December video, a before and after. Anyone who listens to Radio National's breakfast program with Fran Kelly would've heard me interviewed on Wednesday morning.

  6. #6

    Re: Cyclone Seroja

    Good to see you are ok. Pretty scary the power of mother nature.

  7. #7

    Re: Cyclone Seroja

    I cooked up sausage sandwiches in the picnic area near the mouth back in 2018 on e trip from Broome to Perth. Lovely part of the world.

  8. #8

    Re: Cyclone Seroja

    Jesus - glad you are all safe. The old Fishing WA monster tailor spot. Enjoyed watching some of those episodes - beautiful part of the world.

  9. #9
    Ausfish Platinum Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Location
    Kalbarri, WA
    Thread Starter

    Re: Cyclone Seroja

    Quote Originally Posted by gunna View Post
    I cooked up sausage sandwiches in the picnic area near the mouth back in 2018 on e trip from Broome to Perth. Lovely part of the world.
    that picnic shelter and barbecue is now part of the beach-stll standing, bit bent, bit surrounded by sand. This is what it looks like now.





    This is the remains of the carpark and fishing platform just up from that shelter










    This is the view you would have standing up on the road adjacent to that shelter, looking to the carpark. The shire haven't cleaned it up, probably because it will have to barricaded anyway to prevent the foolish driving down and having the edge of the road collapse. There was a picture posted on social media this morning of a piece of timber driven clean through the trunk of a big Cocos palm near the waterfront.

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