The clean up is underway in the New South Wales Illawarra region after winds of up to 100km an hour were recorded in some areas. The weather bureau has reissued a warning of similar conditions for tomorrow.
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00:00Today looks vastly different than it did yesterday.
00:05The same blue skies but without the relentless winds that we saw.
00:09Winds of up to 60 to 80 k's an hour, those averages, and wind gusts of up to 110 k's
00:15an hour.
00:16Further south of where I am in Port Kembler, we saw recorded winds of up to 113 k's an
00:22hour and Albion Park, 107 k's an hour.
00:26Now these kinds of conditions really chopped up the waters behind me making it really dangerous
00:31for swimmers.
00:32They also brought down trees and branches onto power lines, cars and homes causing widespread
00:38damage as well as power outages.
00:41The SES says it received 630 calls for help and have been tending to those incidences
00:47right through until the morning.
00:49We saw some disruption to the Wollongong CBD as well, 16 people had to be evacuated from
00:55a multi-storey business after the windows of that building were seen to be moving in
01:01the wind and authorities closed down the road, moved those people out to ensure that there
01:07was no ongoing hazard.
01:09We also saw signage of an interiors business in Crown Street that flew off and the road
01:15was closed for a couple of hours as well so that crews could remove the rest of that signage
01:20and rid of that hazard.
01:21The SES says it is incredibly fortunate that there were no reported injuries.
01:27The initial weather warning was meant to reprieve in the early afternoon yesterday but by lunchtime
01:33that was reissued into the early evening and that is exactly what we saw.
01:37Now yesterday afternoon was particularly busy for fire crews as they tended to a grass fire
01:43that was fanned up by those winds and that was on the side of the M1 Princes motorway
01:48at Kanahooka and northbound traffic was closed for several hours and caused quite a few headaches
01:54for commuters there.
01:56We have also seen 2,500 people this morning still without power and Endeavour Energy says
02:03they have to tend to 200 hazards before they can turn the lights on for those homes.
02:08Fire authorities are still on alert for today as with these winds it is still unseasonably
02:14hot as well.
02:16The Weather Bureau has reissued a similar wind warning for tomorrow.
02:21We're expecting 60 to 70 k's an hour averages and wind gusts of up to 100 k's an hour.
02:28So it will be similar to what we saw yesterday and people are being urged to take care and
02:33watch out going into the weekend.