Alice Springs bracing for more storms after 'worst in 40 years'

Alice Springs bracing for more while cleaning up after storm with 96km/h winds In short: Residents in southern parts of the Northern Territory are bracing for another thunderstorm on Tuesday, before the clean-up has even finished from a storm on Monday afternoon. Power is still out for 4,000 homes, fences have been knocked down and tree branches litter the streets of Alice Springs. What's next? The Bureau of Meteorology says there will be more rain, wind and hail later on Tuesday. A wind-lashed Alice Springs is bracing for another storm even as residents have not yet finished clearing up downed tree branches, knocked over fences, leaking roofs and restoring power from "the worst storm in 40 years" on Monday afternoon. Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster Ruby Cuthbertson said wind speeds of up to 96 kilometres per hour were recorded at the Alice Springs airport on Monday afternoon — the ninth-highest October wind speed in 75 years. "A lot of that moisture has come down from the tropics and is driving a lot of those thunderstorms in the south," she said. Ms Cuthbertson said a south-easterly surge on Tuesday afternoon would cause thunderstorms over Alice Springs, Yulara and Ti Tree. "The watch points today are for heavy rain, damaging winds and large hail,"she said. "Particularly just kind of north of Alice we've got some slow-moving potential for those storms, so if they do form there the main risk would be heavy rainfall and then around Yulara, the risk would be damaging winds if we see thunderstorms form up there." Ms Cuthbertson said the thunderstorms would persist later into the week, before the weather was expected to clear next week. Thousands of homes without power Power And Water said electricity had been restored to 5,000 houses, but there were still about 4,000 homes without across a "widespread" area. Executive general manager of power services Belinda Small said there had been extensive damage, but extra crews from Tennant Creek, Darwin and Katherine were travelling to Alice Springs to provide support. "There wasn't a lot of Alice Springs that wasn't impacted," she said. "We've got multiple bays of overhead power lines on the ground, where poles are bent and damaged, and that's a full day's work to repair. "One of our senior managers in Alice Springs described it as the worst storm in 40 years that he's been there." Ms Small said Power and Water was bracing for more storms and encouraged residents to be patient. Damage widespread Northern Territory Emergency Services Deputy Chief Officer Adam White said the service had had 50 requests for assistance from all suburbs of Alice Springs, mostly for trees on houses and cars and roof damage. "I would ask people, if you can today, clean up any debris that's left … get it to the tip or to somewhere safe, secure it where you can, so that if we do have another storm come through, we don't have extra debris," he said. Alice Springs Town Council director of infrastructure Sally O'Callaghan said there was no part of town unscathed, but council had been focusing its clean-up efforts in The Gap and Gillen. "Currently we're working through a lot of priority areas, people's access, road access and footpaths to be able to create accessibility through town," she said. "We actually had quite a significant number of staff that saw the storm come through and stayed back last night, so we actually were ready to hit the ground as soon as it was safe to do so." Ms O'Callaghan said the Alice Springs tip would be open as normal today, and the library and pool would open after sustaining some damage. Northern Territory Police senior sergeant Paula Dooley-McDonnell encouraged residents to stay informed on road closures, weather advice and emergency information through Secure NT. She said people should drive to the conditions, avoid flooded areas and keep away from fallen powerlines.