Cars damaged when storm dislodged Harbour Bridge road plate
A concrete and steel road plate believed to have been dislodged when a thunderstorm swept over Sydney on Sunday night damaged 25 cars near the Harbour Bridge.
NSW Secretary of Transport Josh Murray apologised to the motorists whose cars were damaged when the road plate, measuring one square metre and made of concrete and steel, became dislodged in the storms just after 8pm on Sunday.
The storm is being blamed for chaos on the Harbour Bridge on Sunday night.Credit: Nine News
Warringah Freeway upgrade contractors CPB believe water pushed up the road plate, which was covering a pit in the road near the Harbour Bridge entrance.
Twenty-five motorists were left with damaged cars in the incident, which also caused delays for two hours on the bridge.
“It was a nightmare,” Murray told 2GB’s Ben Fordham.
“Let me apologise to anyone whose car was damaged or anyone else who was caught up for about two hours.”
A huge shelf cloud crossed Sydney on Sunday night. Credit: Nick Moir
Transport for NSW will pay to repair the damage caused to cars, Murray said.
Those affected were given a hotline number to call. However, one motorist said the agency wasn’t ready for her to get in touch this morning.
The driver, Sienna, told 2GB’s Ben Fordham that when she hit the road plate last night she was left trying to change her tyre for an hour in the pouring rain. When she called the hotline this morning, she said the transport employee on the other end didn’t seem to know why she was calling.
“A lovely woman picked up, but she had no idea what had happened. She wasn’t briefed on the incident at all, and just couldn’t help me,” she said.
The dramatic storm pushed into Sydney from the west before heading out to sea, bringing with it about 20mm of rain to most Sydney suburbs.
The Royal National Park recorded 30mm of rain yesterday – the most of the drenching.
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The lightning and thunder show was dramatic to watch, but travellers heading into Sydney Airport were inconvenienced when more than 20 flights were cancelled. A Qatar Airlines flight from Doha to Sydney was diverted to Brisbane when it was unable to land during the storm.
The State Emergency Service responded to 278 incidents statewide – 81 of those were in Sydney, 50 in southern NSW and 49 in western parts of the state.
The worst-hit place in the state was Carinda, a small town of just 93 residents near Walgett. Damaging winds destroyed the roofs of the local pub, a pizza restaurant and the general store, a NSW SES spokesperson said.
The winds took down power lines and disrupted the town’s electricity supply.
There are scattered power outages across Sydney, including at Auburn, where more than 500 people have been without electricity since about 8pm on Sunday. Ausgrid is working to restore power, which is estimated to come back about 10am.
There are also outages on the Central Coast and around Newcastle.
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