Homes have been destroyed and trees stripped of leaves by a severe storm that tore through parts of South Australia's Eyre Peninsula just days after flooding rains.
The storm on Wednesday evening caused the most damage in an area of the central Eyre Peninsula around Cummins, Yeelanna and Kapinnie.
The Bureau of Meteorology recorded almost 50 millimetres of rainfall at the Port Lincoln airport, to the south, in about five hours on Wednesday night.
The power is out to about 2,300 Eyre Peninsula properties and there were reports that the mobile phone network was affected.
SA Power Networks said it would be providing SMS updates to around 70 per cent of its customers signed up to that system.
'Suddenly the roof was gone'
Amy Maddern was home with her family on their property at Mitchell, north of Kapinnie, when the storm moved over just before 6pm.
Her family was getting ready for dinner when the wind became wild, picking up objects outside the house.
"The pergola started to lift and we all got in the pantry," Ms Maddern said.
"My daughter was in the bath, and she didn't know what was happening because suddenly the roof was gone from above her."
As the winds howled and the storm took about 10 minutes to pass, Ms Maddern said she focused on her children's safety "to make sure we were all there and alive and together; just make sure that the kids were alright".
"I've got a daughter that's very, very scared of storms and won't sit next to windows.
There were no stock or animal losses.
"We thought the 15-year-old border collie was dead and it was asleep under the pergola — it was asleep with a beam next to it."
'It was horrifying'
Maddison Glover, 15, was having dinner with her family at their property in Yeelanna when the storm reached the area.
"It was dark, and it was loud. It was roaring, it didn't stop; it sounded like thunder but it just got louder and louder," she said.
"The wind was outstanding; it just swung around the house and we watched trees fall over.
Maddison said the property sustained a great deal of damage, while family friends lost their house in the storm.
"There was water everywhere; it was flooding, we had lost one of our sheds, we had lost doors on one of our [other] sheds and ... a lot of trees have fallen over," she said.
Farmer stranded by fast-rising creek
Farmers in the Ungarra region, north-east of Cummins, reported receiving between 50 and 100mm of rain in the storm.
Ben Pugsley farms at Ungarra with his wife and four children. He said yesterday's downpour saw him stuck on the wrong side of a rapidly rising creek.
“We have been stuck before with the creek coming up, so I thought I better go and grab the generator from the shed and a few others things to prepare for what was to come," he said.
"We had some neighbours that were away so I also thought I better go and check their place, and when I got back I realised the creek had risen so quickly that I was marooned on the other side with my youngest son Bryn.
Mr Pugsley said he considered returning to the neighbour's house and camping in a spare room, but his oldest son came to the rescue.
"Eventually I was able to convince ... Ethan to go and pull the big tractor out of the shed, and he drove through the flood waters no worries ... and took us home," he said.
Mr Pugsley did not believe there had been much structural damage on his property, apart from gutters on paddocks.
Snakes about
Cummins resident Judy Hurrell posted on Facebook warning locals that the weather had brought with it a new danger.
"There are lots of snakes about town at the moment due to the flooding," she wrote.
The severe weather comes days after the region was battered by destructive rains, causing serious flooding that is yet to recede in most parts.
Several Eyre Peninsula regions recorded the most rain they had ever received in a 24-hour period.
