By Taylah Eastwell
After counting the 20th tree fall on the night of the storm, Mandy Williams gave up counting.
Sitting in her Monbulk loungeroom on the night of 9 June, with husband Spence nearby, Mrs Williams watched anxiously through her skylight windows as the tree tops “whipped around” in the gusty bursts of wind.
“It was dark so you couldn’t really see anything, but I could see the tree tops against the night sky. Between all the rain and then all the leaves and branches that blew onto the roof, there was lots of noise, and then of course the trees started to fall down,” Mrs Williams said.
“You could just hear them go thump. One fell and clipped the roof just outside where I was sitting but I thought it was just a branch. When I got up the next morning, it was a 45-metre tree and it just missed. Had it of been a bit taller, it would have got the house,” she said.
With their Rankins Road property one of very few still full of trees, Mr and Mrs Williams woke up on Thursday (10 June) to absolute destruction.
They had between 70 to 100 trees down on their property alone, with the view of trees from their back deck now a clear view of the neighbouring fence line as fallen trees cover the ground.
“We woke up and couldn’t get out the door. We could see a lot of it off the back deck, and we just had no idea where to start,” Mrs Williams said.
“I have always whinged I needed a bit more of a view and a bit more sun, so there is a positive,” Mrs Williams laughed.
While finding a positive amidst the destruction isn’t easy, if there was ever a story of luck, it would have to involve the Williams.
Their home survived a bushfire sparked by lightning strike in 2019, with many of the emergency service volunteers who attended after the storm remembering the property from the large blaze a few years back.
One tree, that just clipped the roof of the deck, had a bend in its trunk that went perfectly around their deck when it hit the ground. If it weren’t for the slight bend in that very tree, the deck would have been totalled.
Another “great big tree” just outside the front door had recently been trimmed by an arborist. The tree fell so heavily that its roots ripped entirely out of the ground, but thankfully, it fell away from the home.
“This house is like a cat with nine lives,” Mrs Williams said.
“It was a bit scary, but I didn’t feel my life was threatened, you were more worried for property than life I would say,” Mrs Williams said.
The Williams were blocked in their driveway from Wednesday night until Saturday (12 June) due to fallen trees, unable to call for help due to phone networks being down.
“We couldn’t do much at all, our phones were out so we couldn’t ring anybody. It wasn’t until the phones came back that we could ring the SES and say ‘can you come and cut us out?’,” Mrs Williams explained.
But despite the carnage on their property, and 11 long days without power, the Williams’ still consider themselves lucky.
“We were luckier than most because we have gas hot water and a wood fire, a lot of people had nothing, no heating, no cooking. In that sense we were better off than many.
With no idea where to start, the Williams’ were grateful when one of Spence’s relatives saw the Help the Hills – Dandenong Ranges Taskforce on Facebook and suggested they get in contact.
“Because we had no power we weren’t looking at Facebook to try and conserve power. I saw the group and filled their online form out. They got back to me and couldn’t come the first weekend due to it still being red-zoned but they came the following weekend and started clearing around the house,” Mrs Williams said.
“The next weekend they came back with the Disaster Relief Australia guys and an excavator and they’ve done a lot as well. Both groups have been absolutely brilliant because it’s just beyond us,” she said.
“They’ve basically cleared a 20 metre fire break now around the house. They said it was just too dangerous come summer with bushfires. There is still loads of work to do but it’s not as urgent.
“It’s so important to acknowledge how great they’ve been. They are just people that you don’t know and they’ve come to help us and we really appreciate that because it was just totally beyond us, we would have just been sitting here amongst the trees,” Mrs Williams said.
