FOR Gary and Elaine Mewburn Thursday’s storm started as an inconvenience and ended with Police, Ambulance and SES members attending a callout to their residence in Brock Street, after they became trapped in their flooded, downstairs garage.

Mrs Mewburn said they have lived in their two storey home for 5 years and have never experienced anything like the volume of water that struck their house.

“The storm had been going for a while,” said Mrs Mewburn.

“We always watch the road and the drain in front of our shed. When the water started to come over the road we went downstairs to put some towels across the front roller-door to keep water out.

“While we were doing that the water rose very suddenly.

“The drains started flowing backwards and before we knew it water had pushed in the front roller-door and we were suddenly waist deep in brown water – with goodness knows what hitting our legs!” Mrs Mewburn said.

The abrupt influx of water washed everything inside the Mewburn’s garage against the rear roller-door, which also gave out under the sudden onslought.

“We just didn’t have time to open the rear door high enough,” said Mr Mewburn.

“The door leading out into the bottom bedrooms was also jammed shut by the force of the water, and everything that had washed in behind it.

“Our son, Chris was in one of the downstairs bedrooms at the time, studying for his Higher School Certificate, he had to climb out the windows and then he made the triple-0 call.

“I don’t think we were scared - we were apprehensive about it all - and when the emergency services arrived we couldn’t hear what was going on outside.

“We really don’t know what happened during the storm, we missed most of it,” Mr Mewburn said.

The Mewburns were uninsured, pensioners and both suffer from a heart condition. They estimate the damage done to their property to be over $10,000.