THREE minutes of terror was all it took for a storm to cause more than $50,000 worth of damage at a Burrumbuttock home.
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Sarah Fandrich was at her Orelda Siding Road property with her husband and six children when a wild “mini-tornado” tore through about 3pm on Saturday.
Two pet geese were killed, a 20,000 litre water tank disappeared, a silo was knocked down and crushed and a garage destroyed.
“The storm came over the hill from behind our property and I understand it started at Walbundrie,” Mrs Fandrich said.
“We had the eye of the storm come over us and we heard trees falling down.
“We left the house as soon as the wind died down and saw it going over our neighbour’s property.
“It was a tornado.”
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The Fandrichs only moved to Burrumbuttock nine months ago and items they had unpacked into the garage, which was demolished, were strewn across the front lawn.
A trampoline was thrown among the debris.
Mrs Fandrich said the gale-force winds broke a window in the family van, sucking out the light fitting from the roof of the car.
“Once we realised the veracity of the storm I was concerned for my children and my husband,” she said.
“My four-year-old was very distressed and scared — all the kids were very shaken.”
Mrs Fandrich’s husband Christian is the pastor at the Burrumbuttock Lutheran Church and Mrs Fandrich said the community had rallied around them.
On Saturday night the football club took the family pies, cakes and sandwiches and on Sunday parishioners offered to cut up wood and help clean the debris.
“We will be fixing this up for months but the community has shown a great desire to help,” Mrs Fandrich said.
“We still feel very blessed to live in this place and we are aware we have a lot of work and cleaning up to do this week.
“We just have to sit on our hands while we wait for assessors to check everything is OK.”
Mrs Fandrich was aware of three houses that were damaged by the storm.
SES crews from Albury and Culcairn and the Albury and Border Rescue Squad attended homes and cleared debris off the roads between Burrumbuttock and Brocklesby after the storm hit.
Roofs were blown off sheds and a large tree even blocked the driveway to a home.
A SES spokesman said they received two calls for emergency help but there were a number of people with damage.
“It’s a small farming town and resilient farmers were out with chainsaws as well as the council,” he said.
“Nobody was injured that has been reported to us.”
