At 9am Thursday morning, the Ballarat SES unit had already received 42 requests for assistance with more coming in a constant stream throughout the day.

SES volunteers started the day with 175 jobs allocated across the midwest region with the majority in the Bacchus Marsh, Hepburn and Ballarat areas.

Speaking to The Courier on Thursday afternoon, VICSES midwest regional duty officer Jarrod McLean said crews were still getting a handle on the situation.

READ MORE:

"There are a lot of roads that are blocked off just with the number of trees down," he said.

"We've had mainly storm related jobs, building damage and tree down on roads, so we're still working to complete a lot of those jobs because what they're finding is crews across all agencies are removing a tree and then there's more falling down behind them as they're trying to gain access.

"It's a difficult time so safety is a critical part of what our crews are out there doing."

Ballarat SES unit had a constant stream of calls for assistance coming through from about 3am, with more coming as day broke and people started to attempt to make their way to work.

Ballarat SES unit duty officer Jeff Webb said crews worked right through the night and early morning.

"As people got up and started to move about heading off to work, there were lots of people trees down across lots of roads right across the district including on the Western Highway, Midland Highway and out as far as Creswick, out to the west of us as well and many smaller streets around Ballarat," he said.

"As daylight hit, we started to get more and more calls from people with trees down over driveways, onto houses, carports, things like that, and those jobs have just kept rolling in steadily all day."

Mr Webb said volunteers were still 'flat out' on Thursday afternoon as calls continued to roll in.

"We've got limited people because we've used most of them over the last sort of 18 hours so we've got crews out now and people resting up ready to go out again when they finish work or have had sufficient rest this evening," he said.

"It's slowed down but we are still getting a steady influx of jobs coming through and we'll probably get more as people start to get home after work, trees and things that have come down in the wind and the rain during the day."

Mr Webb encouraged the public to stay safe, secure loose items and avoid parking under trees as those were the causes of numerous callouts.

If you are seeing this message you are a loyal digital subscriber to The Courier, as we made this story available only to subscribers. Thank you very much for your support and allowing us to continue telling Ballarat's story. We appreciate your support of journalism in our great city.