Storm causes flash flooding

A thunderstorm on the night of Thursday, January 5, caused flash flooding across the Peninsula and an interruption to electricity supply, dumping 44mm of rain in less than 30 minutes.

Flooding was reported in Ocean Beach Rd and Veron Rd as the rainfall rate reached nearly 125mm an hour.

The storm, which started at 11.15pm, was over by midnight, with lightning interrupting electricity supply at about 11.35pm.

A number of phone calls were made to the State Emergency Service from Peninsula residents requiring assistance.

Spokesman Mr Werner Klumpp said the storm "seemed like it was going to be full on when it hit but moved on fairly quickly".

"We had about 12 calls in about 15-20 minutes so it looked like it was going to be fairly busy but the storm moved across and out to sea, so a lot of the jobs were cancelled," he said.

Mr Klumpp said the majority of the phone calls were from the Peninsula area including Umina, Ettalong, Empire Bay and Daleys Point.

"Calls came in just after midnight between 12am and 12:30am.

"We called crews immediately and crews responded and were dispatched by 1am, but by then the storm had abated and we started to get calls from residents that assistance was no longer required and that was mainly on the jobs that people had requested sand bags," he said.

Mr Klumpp said the Service only did about four jobs all night which consisted of protecting leaking roofs, one of which was in Woy Woy.

Kaitlin Watts, 6 Jan 2011 Werner Klumpp, Gosford SES www.peninsulaweather.info