Flash flooding in Adelaide as thunderstorms lash state

Emergency services in South Australia have responded to hundreds of calls for help after severe storms caused flash flooding.

Transcript

00:00 Severe storms hit South Australia. They started in the early hours of this morning and much

00:06 of that rainfall was concentrated in a part of Adelaide's southern suburbs. In one particular

00:11 creek catchment, the water comes down off the Adelaide hills into this one valley and

00:15 then it flows through some suburbs and that's where most of the incidents were, most of

00:19 the damage was caused. Two of the incidents were very serious. One was where a concrete

00:24 wall from a partially built house has fallen onto a neighbouring property and witnesses

00:29 said that injured a mother and baby inside and the SES says there was another incident

00:34 where someone was trapped in a car in floodwaters, reminding people again not to drive across

00:39 flooded roads. But the State Emergency Service says most of the incidents were in that southern

00:44 area of Adelaide caused by flooding in that particular creek. We saw more than 250 requests

00:50 for assistance to the SES. That intense downpour, we saw some major impacts particularly around

00:56 the Mitcham area between 6 and 7am with falls around 45mm in that one hour period. The floodwaters

01:03 also caught up an Adelaide favourite, the fibreglass blue whale that sits as part of

01:08 the city's annual Christmas light display. It was caught in the waters, taken downstream

01:13 making an apparent bid for freedom in the ocean but unfortunately for the whale it only

01:18 got about half a kilometre downstream before it got caught in some trees on the riverbank.

01:23 It's not the first time the whale has broken free and tried to reach the sea, it last did

01:28 that in 2010. So we can only assume that whale is going to be put back, there will be some

01:33 recovery effort made and hopefully it will be back in place in time for this year's Christmas

01:37 light display. The storms have moved off to the east away from Adelaide's metropolitan

01:41 area but there are still warnings in place for residents. Particularly the State Emergency

01:46 Service wants people to be aware of the risk of falling trees. The ground is quite saturated

01:51 and there are still some damaging wind gusts expected to continue throughout the afternoon

01:56 and evening.

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