Susan Cobham had been at her neighbourhood Christmas gathering near Narrabeen Surf Life Saving Club yesterday afternoon when the “micro-burst” weather event ripped through the area.
She died in the car park on Ocean Street in Narrabeen, while two other women, one aged 71 and another in her late teens, were critically injured.
A Surf Life Saving crew was first on the scene of the deadly accident and Sydney Northern Beaches Branch President Tracey Hare-Boyd said it was confronting for the duty officers.
“My heart goes out to them, because you can never train anyone enough for the scenes, for what they saw yesterday and for what they had to do,” she said.
The younger patient had head injuries, spinal injuries, and the second surviving woman had severe internal injuries, Superintendent Paul Edwards from NSW Ambulance said today.
He said they were taken to Royal North Shore Hospital by road with a medical team transporting them.
Numerous powerlines and other trees were downed or uprooted in the “micro-storm”, which ripped apartment roofs off and damaged cars.
Dee Why and Narrabeen were hardest hit by the weather event, which “appeared out of nowhere”, according to NSW SES Superintendent Stuart Fisher.
There were more than 550 calls for assistance to the SES, 150 Triple Zero calls, while more than 26,000 homes remain without power.
Firefighters said wild winds ripped the roof off a Forestville shopping centre, tore sheets of metal from apartment buildings and triggered a partial building collapse in Curl Curl.
The service described the incident as a “mini-cyclone”, saying trees were knocked onto vehicles and roads, with powerlines torn down from Dee Why to Narrabeen.
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“People were running. People were ducking. No one knew where to go because there was no shelter,” one resident said.
“It didn’t matter where you drove it was still going bang, bang, bang on the roof.”
The clean-up is ongoing this morning.
