The damaged windows in Glenn Preddy's building.
LIKE a plane crashing, that’s how Glenn Preddy described the tornado that caved in two big windows on the upper facade of the 1892 Rutherglen building he calls home.
The public servant was at the rear of the two-storey Main Street land-mark, which formerly housed the Rendezvous Courtyard Restaurant and was originally occupied by the Standard bakery when it opened.
“There was a little bit of flickering of the lights and a bit of rain,” Mr Preddy said.
“We heard a bit of noise and we thought at first that it was the awnings which we have down on the patio doors.
“Then it sounded like a plane crashing.
Ït was like the screaming of turbines in aeroplane engines.
Ï thought there was a plane coming into Albury and it was going to crash.”
Nearby fish and chip shop proprietor Dawn Leahy said her front door was shaking violently.
“It was all over in a few minutes and when I walked outside it was like a bomb had exploded,” she said.
“There were power lines down everywhere, the building across the road had fallen onto the road, there was glass debris everywhere.”
Mr Preddy and his housemate Paul Bowman found their awnings pierced by debris and an old water tank, but it was the hollowed-out windows that were the greatest shock.
One was pushed in on to a bed, while there was only a sliver of the other window left in its frame.
The building, designed by architect John Young who was also responsible for Rutherglen’s Mount Ophir homestead, originally had a balcony which Mr Preddy and Mr Bowman had hoped to restore.
