Young battered by hail

Locals were in shock at the sheer size of the hail that damaged cars, homes and crops as it passed through town in no longer than 30 minutes.

The local SES – assisted by Harden SES and Fire & Rescue NSW – responded to 13 calls for assistance on Friday night, five on Saturday and one on Sunday.

Local SES Controller, Colleen Clancy, said the calls were mainly in response to skylight damage and smashed windows, although they did attend a Spring Creek Road residence where a tree had fallen onto a car, narrowly missing a home.

“We worked through until about 3.30am Saturday morning and were back out at 9am on Saturday,” Colleen said.

“We’ve had some doozy storms around over the years but never hail like that that I know of – [the damage] could have been a lot worse.” 

Colleen reminds residents to call 132500 when in need of assistance.

Local cherry grower, Scott Coupland, said it appears most orchards were missed, despite a few patches “here and there”. 

“I haven’t really heard of any other growers saying they’ve been hit hard – minimal damage as far as I’m aware,” he said. 

Although fellow farmers weren’t so lucky, with local agronomist, Paul Parker, confirming whole crops have been wiped out.

“Out at Maimuru and north of Young out near Bendick Murrell there’s been significant damage to crops, as well as vehicles written off due to hail damage.

“It’s going to take a day or two for everyone to work out the extent of the damage – it’s regrettable because we had some fairly good crops around.”

Also counting his losses is local car dealer, Jamie Harden of Harden Geelan Holden and Young Mitsubishi, who estimated around 90 per cent of his vehicles had been damaged in the freak storm. He and other local car yards now inspect the extent of the damage. 

“I’ve been here since 1993 and I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.

“It’d have to be into the millions of dollars worth of damage, it’s ridiculous.”