Castlemaine State Emergency Service volunteers were kept busy over the weekend, responding to 34 requests for assistance across Mount Alexander Shire between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon.
The most heavily impacted area was Harcourt, where high winds brought down trees and caused damage to roads and properties.
While the majority of calls related to fallen trees blocking roads, SES crews also attended incidents involving significant damage to homes, vehicles and power infrastructure. Several properties across the region suffered roof damage — some from falling branches or trees, and others simply due to the sheer force of the wind.
In one incident in Muckleford, a truck struck a power pole while attempting to avoid a fallen tree, cutting electricity to parts of the area.
Friday night saw the highest volume of callouts, with Castlemaine SES volunteers themselves affected by the hazardous conditions. While en route to an incident in Maldon, one of the SES vehicles was struck by a flying tree branch, damaging the radio antennas, red and blue emergency light bar, and causing minor damage to the vehicle’s bodywork.
The crew was unharmed and able to continue attending callouts throughout the night.
In a more alarming incident, volunteers responding to a fallen tree on the Calder Freeway experienced a near miss when a vehicle, reportedly travelling at 110 km/h, collided with the unit’s red and blue emergency beacon. No one was injured.
Castlemaine SES section leader Daniel Bone urged drivers to be more cautious during and after storm events.
“Our volunteers are out in all conditions helping keep our community safe,” Mr Bone said.
“There are unavoidable risks in this work, but drivers can make a big difference simply by slowing down in bad weather and when passing emergency scenes. Over the weekend, we cleared more than 40 large trees and branches from local roads — any one of those could have caused a serious accident.”
Mr Bone also reminded the public of the legal obligation to slow to 40 km/h when passing emergency vehicles with flashing lights.
“It’s not just for the safety of our volunteers — it’s the law,” he added.
