IN the late 1950s, Moree was hit by a horrendous hailstorm that all but flattened the town.

In Moree and surrounding villages, hundreds of homes were damaged, many beyond repair and uninhabitable.

The district’s wheat crops – midway through harvest – were decimated.

Moree’s main shopping precinct was the worst hit. Hail-drifts measuring more than four-feet deep in some places blocked Balo Street when four inches of rain, sleet and ice fell in half-an-hour.

In other parts of town, violent winds tore roofs off dwellings, blew down powerlines and uprooted trees.

At least 50 families became homeless. Miraculously, no deaths were recorded, however one lady was hospitalised with a fractured leg when the roof of her home collapsed under the sheer weight of hailstones.

Catastrophic storms across the district were described as the worst in 40 years.

Hail, water and wind damage inundated the black-soil plains and wreaked havoc south-eastward as far as the Liverpool Plains and Hunter Valley.

The storm in Moree erupted at about 5pm on Tuesday, November 17, 1959.

Balo Street shops and businesses were calling it a day and children were being beckoned inside because of prevailing winds and threatening thunderheads.

Within minutes, Moree’s main street – and the rest of the town – was awash with hail and stormwater.

Fierce winds battered buildings and homes, and torrential rain caused flash-flooding in most parts of Moree.

Damage to homes and infrastructure was estimated at more than £200,000 and damage to the district’s wheat crops surpassed £500,000.

In new millennium dollars, the in-town damage equates to more than $7.5 million, with damage to crops coming in at nearly $19 million.

To fully grasp the cost of the damage, the average wage in Australia in the late 1950s was a little more than £8 per week, or $300 in new millennium dollars.

The horrific storm was comparable to a severe weather event 11 years earlier.

Nine days before Christmas in 1948, Moree was battered by a storm described as the worst in the town’s history.

Heavy rain followed hurricane-like winds, but the downpour could not be measured because rain gauges were washed away.

Losses were assessed at more than £100,000 and few buildings escaped structural damage.

The storm, with winds reaching 70 miles per hour, demolished St Andrew’s Church and All Saints’ Church.

St Philomena’s Convent was badly damaged and Wilson and Son’s Emporium and Logan’s Furniture Store were severely hit.

Every residential dwelling in town suffered some degree of damage and roofing was torn from hundreds of buildings. Dozens of families were left homeless.

Railway workers’ temporary accommodation at Moree Showground – comprising tents and shanties – was completely razed.

Moree was without a telephone service or connected to electricity for nearly 24 hours.

At a hastily convened public meeting at Moree War Memorial Hall, townsfolk voted unanimously to seek emergency relief from the Australian Government.

A priority for timber supplies to begin putting the town back together was also lodged.

Moree Police Sergeant Arthur Lockhart described the storm’s ferocity as the worst in living memory.

“Pieces of galvanised iron were blown through the air like feathers,” he said.

“Plate-glass windows were smashed into a million pieces. The wind roared and howled, and it was almost impossible to hear anyone talk.

“Sheets of iron, timber and other debris could be seen hurtling 40 to 100 feet in the air, and being carried for miles,” he said.

Sergeant Lockhart and Inspector William Wright, who transferred to Moree from Maitland three months earlier, quickly established emergency relief measures.

An evacuation base was set up at Moree Wool Stores and hundreds of families required temporary shelter.

As soon as the storm subsided, more than 50 carpenters and volunteers began repair work to numerous homes and buildings.

Residents formed working bees to tackle the huge clean-up operation.

Narrabri, Scone, Tamworth and other parts of New South Wales were hit the same day.

Again, crops across most parts of the State were decimated.

Scone suffered £20,000 worth of damage and Tamworth Showground needed £3000 worth of repairs.

The grandstand roof was blown off and stock pens, refreshment booths and traders’ stalls were either unroofed or flattened.

A church and other buildings at Scone were unroofed and hundreds of sheets of corrugated iron littered the main street.

Linesmen Les Lymbury and Rob Pitman escaped injury when the electric light-pole they were attending, snapped off at ground level. Both men were 12-feet up the pole. They fell to the ground but miraculously escaped unscathed.

At Moree, Mayor Bill Heinrich, who returned the previous year after a stint at the head of the table five years earlier, announced the State Government had given the greenlight for the shipment of large quantities of galvanised iron sheets to help rebuild the town.

“The total damage is estimated at £100,000 and police and other officials consider it will take probably 12 months to complete full repairs,” alderman Heinrich said.

“It is likely some families will be without homes for some time, as at least eight houses suffered damage beyond repair.

“A meeting will be held to seek special government priority in the wake of this disaster,” he said.

Federal Member for Gwydir, William Scully, supported Mr Heinrich’s plea for assistance.

“The Federal Government will do everything in its power to help the people of Moree and surrounding districts,” he said.

Miraculously, no-one was killed during the storms of the 1940s and 1950s, given their ferocity, but over the years, several people in the Moree district weren’t so fortunate.

In the space of 15 years in the early 1900s, five men were killed by lightning strikes while seeking refuge from storms.

On April 12, 1900, 31-year-old Moree Lands Office surveyor Alf Roberts was struck dead by lightning during a heavy storm while performing surveying duties at Bundiwithidi, near Terry Hie Hie.

Roberts had sent his men ahead to start work and later drove towards their direction. A fierce storm brewed overhead.

Once the storm cleared, one of the men headed back to look for Roberts.

He found his boss’s body on the plains with Roberts’ face, chest, and left leg burnt, and a boot severed in half.

The following year, Charles Dunn, a railway works employee, was killed by lightning during a sharp thunderstorm at the Bulyeroi No.3 rail camp, near Rowena.

The storm only lasted a few minutes, with 56 points of rain recorded, or nearly 20mm in today’s money.

Incredibly, the same day, a shearer named Albert Young and the horse he was riding, and another he was leading, was killed by a lightning strike on the Bogamildi Road seven miles from Warialda.

A mate riding a bicycle about 100 yards behind escaped injury.

In 1904, butcher Walter Culpitt was struck and killed by lightning during a wild storm in Moree.

The Moree News reported “it would appear that deceased, who had been a resident of Moree for about 18 months, had gone out to bring in some horses. He was carrying a loaded whip, which he apparently was holding up near his head when it was struck by lightning, and it acted as a conductor of the electricity to his body”.

“A portion of the whip near a ferrule at the end was torn to shreds, and Culpitt’s hat was also shattered to fragments, parts of which were picked up some yards away.

“His hair was singed, and his face greatly discoloured, the sight being a dreadful one. When discovered, he was lying face downwards, his arms being folded beneath him, and he held the whip in one hand. Death appeared to be instantaneous.”

In 1914 at Gravesend, an elderly man named John Barnes, also a shearer, and his dog were found dead at the base of a tree that had been destroyed by lightning.

Barnes and his dog were at the property, Killarney, owned by William Coulton, on their way to Pallamallawa.

The Warialda Standard and Northern Districts’ Advertiser reported Barnes, estimated to be around 70 years of age, had been at Coulton’s farmhouse that morning.

“He returned to where he had left his swag a couple of chains from the road. Mr Shea, who is employed by Mr Coulton, had seen the old man sitting alongside a tree when on his way out into the paddock,” the newspaper reported.

“As the storm approached, the people at the house expected he would make there for shelter, but he didn’t.”

When the storm subsided, Shea and a farm employee rode across to where Barnes was last seen, about 550 yards away, and found the bodies of the old shearer and his dog.

“The lightning had struck the small tree against which he was resting while sitting on his swag. The dog lay curled up under the end of the swag, in the position in which he had been seeking shelter,” the Warialda Standard reported.

The bodies were buried close to where Barnes and his faithful companion met their tragic fate.

Words: Bill Poulos

Images: Moree and District Historical Society