West Gippsland dodges storm
The Baw Baw shire area and much of Gippsland “dodged a bullet” said Warragul SES co-ordinator Raelene Zieta when severe storms hit much of Victoria recently.
Ms Zieta said there were a few local call-outs, all to remove trees and limbs that had crashed across roads.
Warragul got a welcome 5.8 millimetres of rain during the night of December 18 after a hot and muggy day.
But it was a different story elsewhere, even as close as the Pakenham area, with the SES fielding 1800 requests for assistance.
Huge hailstones described as being the size of golf balls, heavy rain that led to flash flooding in some areas and strong winds that caused some severe damage to buildings, uprooted trees and cut power supplies were experienced in large parts of the state.
Up to 100,000 homes lost power supplies on the night and many were still waiting for it to be restored the next day.
A special garden at Warragul and District Specialist School has been enhanced thanks to assistance from Longwarry Lions Club and the Longwarry Community Garden.
Ten colourful mosaics have been added to the garden.
The idea to add mosaics to the garden came after students visited the Longwarry Community Garden.
The students loved the colourful designs and wanted to add them to a fruit and vegetable