THE Ballarat region has come through Thursday night’s storm relatively unscathed, with just five SES call outs made throughout the mid-west region across Thursday night.
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Ballarat experienced 22 ml of rain across the 24 hours beginning at 10am on Thursday, the city’s biggest downpour of the year.
Almost 500 call outs were made statewide for the 24 hours beginning at midday on Thursday, as parts of the state experienced a downpour of more-than 60 millimetres.
While council workers were seen tending to trees around Ballarat on Friday morning, just four of the SES med-west call outs were in relation to storm damage.
SES mid-west duty officer Tony Grimme said the heaviest point of the downpour occurred while people were asleep, meaning no flash flooding had been reported.
“We had a bit of rain but we haven’t really had a lot of wind in the area, so it’s been pretty quiet,” Mr Grimme said. “We’ve only had one job in Ballarat so far.”
The sole call out in Ballarat occurred at 7.30am this morning when tiles came off the roof of a Wendouree house, causing leaks.
Mr Grimme said people had become more proactive in recent years, and were doing more maintenance on their own properties which reduced the reliance on the SES.
“Some of these jobs we cant prevent, like trees coming down, but all we can do is ask members of the public to look after there places to the best of their abilities.”
Drivers seemed to take notice of the changed conditions across the day, with no driving infringements being registered throughout the day.
Ballarat Senior Sergeant Pat Cleary said police were quietly pleased with the behaviour of motorists during the wet weather, and hoped drivers continued to drive responsibly across the wet weekend.
“It’s a time to slow down and drive to the conditions. We need to focus even more and not allow for distraction,” Senior Sergeant Cleary said.
“It’s also a really good time to remind people that we should be checking our cars to make sure they’re road worthy, in particular tyres and windscreens.”
Ballarat can expect to see more rain across the weekend, with a high chance of a downpour exected on Saturday.
