The Storm 22nd March 2010

We have had a really freaky storm. I was sat in Perth having coffee on my own at about 1630. I had gone into Perth to book my day trip to the Pinnacles desert. Suddenly this massive wind tore up the high street and the heavens opened with hailstones the size of golf and cricket balls and near horizontal rain. The rain fell out of the sky like I have never seen it before. It went on for 7 minutes with thunder and lightening so violent and loud it was frightening. It hadn't rained since the end of October and they had more rainfall in that 7 mins than they normally get over the year. Everywhere was flooded because the rain had no where to go because the drains had filled up so quickly. I had to walk in ankle deep water. The trains stopped running and the electrics went out. I had to stay in Perth until the trains started to move again. Unfortunately this was some time as there had been a mud slide at some point. Once the trains started moving I managed to get to Bull Creek station. I then had to wait for a bus. It was no good trying to ring the Laganas as they would not have been able to get to me as the roads were treacherous. All I could do was wait. As luck would have it a bus eventually came along and it was the right number for me. The bus driver collected all the people in the bus station and told them he would take them to a point where they could then move on. My problem was knowing where to get off without lighting to show me the big Riverton Leisureplex. The bus driver went a different way to normal and still there were trees down and flooded roads.. It took me 5 hour's and a lot of guesswork to get back to Willetton, plus I had very wet feet!! The road I had to walk on to get from the bus stop to the house was flooded, ankle deep, with lots of debris from trees. Fortunately it was still warm weather, but dark by now. I arrived back to two flooded rooms and no electricity! The electric came back on early in the morning...36 hours later.
If you look on bbc news or abc news in Australia and put in perth storms you can see the size of the hailstones and news of the storm.