Melbourne Storm. WORST EVER RECORDED. 20 Jan 1941. The worst cloudburst in living memory did tremendous damage in Melbourne between 8.30 and 9.15 on Wednesday night. Accompanied by terrific thunder and lightning, the storm swept a path of destruction across the city and 118 points of rain fell in 30 minutes. Flood water 3ft. deep swept the city streets
Melbourne Storm. (1941, January 20). Bowen Independent (Qld. : 1911 – 1954), p. 3. Retrieved August 6, 2022, from https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/201974909#
The worst cloudburst in living memory did tremendous damage in Melbourne between 8.30 and 9.15 on Wednesday night. Accompanied by terrific thunder and lightning, the storm swept
a path of destruction across the city and 118 points of rain fell in 30 minutes.
Flood water 3ft. deep swept the city streets, inundating basements where stock valued at hundreds of thousands of pounds is now either still under water or smothered in debris and silt.
Lightning struck Jollimont electric sub-station and set switchboards afire, throwing a large section of the electric rail service into confusion. Late at night 10 suburbs were in darkness.
Hundreds of passengers on suburban trains had terrifying experiences when blinding lightning blew fuses, rocked carriages amid showers of sparks, and paralysed suburban rail traffic for 70 minutes. A train standing in Princes Bridge station was struck. The motorman had just left
the cabin.
The entire station building rocked as if an earthquake had shaken it. Tongues of flame leaped from the driver’s cabin and were followed by billowing smoke. Women screamed and leapt from carriages under the torrent of water cascading from the roofs.
Tram passengers were badly shaken by lightning which flickered along overhead wires, blew fuses, and plunged them into darkness while water rose higher than the footboards.
No deaths have been reported although many people had narrow escapes.
Practically no building in the main city area escaped damage. Telephone services were interrupted and traffic was brought to a standstill.
The Flinders street railway station was disorganised for an hour. Torrents raced through subways and drove passengers on to the concourse, because for some minutes that was the only part of the station in which water was not flowing.
WOMAN TRAPPED.
In most city and suburban theatres the clatter of the rain and the thunder drowned most of the dialogue. Caroline Davis, 51, attendant, was trapped in the women’s underground retiring room opposite the G.P.O. in Elizabeth Street. Water cascaded in from both entrances and filled the retiring room to a depth of 8ft, within a few minutes. Mrs. Davis swam to the steps and struggled through the torrents of water and reached the street exhausted.
She was caught, by several feet of water and washed underneath a car. She was rescued by a soldier who took her to hospital.
Corporal Charles Lay, of the A.I.F. was sitting in a room in East Melbourne when lightning passed through a closed window, struck the Australian badge on his shoulder and richochetted
on to a glass he was holding. The glass did not break, and Lay was not injured.