Wimmera towns survive wild weather

Mid West Region SES duty officer Mark Cattell said he had 93 volunteers working in the region from 3pm on Wednesday until yesterday morning.

The wind brought down trees and power lines.

He said the worst affected areas were Ararat, Stawell and Halls Gap.

"We have had in the order of 200 calls for assistance, mainly for trees down," Mr Cattell said.

"A small percentage have been building damage calls because there have been several trees onto buildings causing minor damage. There has also been some minor flood damage into homes and some corrugated iron off roofs."

Mr Cattell said a lot of the calls related to trees falling down on major roads and highways.

"There were a lot of trees down across highways. The Pyrenees, Wimmera and Western highways had a lot of trees down," he said.

"I know of probably two or three cars which either hit trees that had fallen or were hit by falling trees. Even our regional officer's wife drove into a tree on the highway near Great Western but she was not injured.

"We were very lucky not to have people seriously injured or killed. There was a woman trapped in her car for a short time when it was hit by a tree near Buangor."

Mr Cattell said the wet and windy weather was some of the worst he had seen in the region.

"It was comparable to the most severe weather events we have had," he said.

"Because it had been so wet, with the high wind the trees couldn't withstand the pressure with the already soft ground. It was a fairly significant event for the region.

"Ararat and Stawell were the busiest places."

Powercor spokesman Damien Batey said at least 600 Wimmera customers lost power during the wild weather.

"In Ararat there was a fault affecting 212 customers. That problem occurred at 8.30am on Thursday," Mr Batey said.

"In Halls Gap there were 400 customers who lost power overnight when a power line came down."

Three Stawell Powercor customers were affected by a loss of power yesterday with wind damage to a power line.

Mr Cattell said the weather could turn again tomorrow.

"The weather looks like it will settle for another 24 hours but Saturday is looking questionable again," Mr Cattell said.

"So we will be ready to go again on Saturday."

Tree dangers

Wimmera police and State Emergency Service members said several trees hit cars and cars hit fallen trees on Wednesday.

Ararat Senior Constable Simon Grant said the most severe collision involved a woman who had a tree fall on her vehicle near Buangor on Wednesday afternoon.

He said the woman was trapped briefly in the vehicle but was released and taken to Ballarat Base Hospital for observation in a stable condition.

SES Mid West Region duty officer Mark Cattell said several other vehicles hit fallen trees but no-one was injured in the collisions.