The devastation of Cyclone Narelle is only now being revealed as emergency crews take stock of the damage in Western Australia’s northwest.
The town of Exmouth in WA’s northwest remains cut off by road, with the only way in or out by helicopter after Narelle unleashed 250km/h winds as a category four system.
The heartbreak is raw for residents like David Dowding, whose family was forced to take shelter in a walk-in wardrobe as their roof started to tear apart and windows blew in.
“Two major cyclones and two total destructions for that family, so it’s pretty horrendous,” Dowding told 7NEWS.
“It’s found a weakness and the roof has just peeled back and gone over that way, so there’s obviously whole sections of the roof about halfway across that have just been torn off.”
Tony, 85, sheltered in the bathroom as the cyclone tore through.
“Just to hear the wind and the rain come to that, it was pretty horrible,” Tony said.
The devastation is overwhelming. Everywhere you look, homes and businesses are destroyed.
On Saturday, Exmouth is a town with no power and no water. The roads are washed away, the airport runway severely damaged and the terminal building torn apart.
As Narelle continued her damage tour de force south, she put on a show. Shark Bay looked apocalyptic as a dust storm swept in.
Carnarvon copped a direct hit. The system weakened to category two, but the winds were enough to devastate banana crops.
The cost of Narelle will be measured in the tens of millions of dollars as the clean-up begins in a disaster zone stretching hundreds of kilometres.
Source: https://7news.com.au/news/cyclone-narelle-leaves-western-australias-exmouth-cut-off-as-devastating-damage-revealed-c-22062325
