VIOLENT STORM

Press, Volume C, Issue 29402, 3 January 1961, Page 10

VIOLENT STORM

Town Lashed In Victoria (NJ!. Prtu Association —Copyright) MELBOURNE, Jan. 3. A girl was killed by a falling tree in a park during the violent tornado which for 40 minutes lashed Maryborough, a tiny farming settlement 112 miles from Melbourne, on Saturday. It also injured 30 persons and severely damaged hundreds of houses. Estimates of damage range up to £250,000. Later the town's citizens formed huge working bees to clear debris from the streets and buildings, repair each other’s homes and remove wreckage from the park for today’s traditional carnival. In 20 minutes after the storm struck at 3.45 p.m. 3.24 inches of rain were recorded in the centre of the town.

The dead girl was Sonya Stevens, aged 16. of Ballarat road. Deer Park, who was crushed when an 80-foot pine tree fell on her. Weighing 22 stone, Miss Stevens had been her family's star attraction as "fat lady" in their side-show. Her seven-year-old brother, Miller, who was clutching her hand when the tree fell, was critically injured. He is in hospital with spinal injuries and a fracture of the base of the skull. The storm swept through the town in an easterly direction, blowing itself out on the outskirts at 4.25 p.m. The entire town was blacked out for hours and all telephone communications were cut. It also knocked a church hall from its foundations and left it tilted at a 15-degree angle. The 100-mile-an-hour wind tore the roofs off more than 100 houses. Thousands of trees were uprooted and broken power lines lay across the streets. . A wedding was in progress in the Presbyterian church in the town when tiles blew off the roof. The bridal party was drenched by the heavy rain and later at the reception Gilbert Conwall had to carry his bride through a foot of water from the car to a local hotel, where guests took over to chair her through ankle-deep water to the wedding breakfast table. In the storm two crocodiles, one five feet long and the other two feet long, escaped in the floodwaters from a sideshow in the park. The owner found them unharmed under a tree yesterday morning. Flooding of hotel cellars resulted in the draught beer supply being cut off in every hotel in. town. Drinkers stood at the bars in ankle-deep water drinking warm bottled beer. Late today two of the town’s hotels were still pumping out their cellars and clearing up the mess.