- Most of these properties have new roofs, since this suburb was badly damaged by the catastrophic hail storm of 14 Apr 1999: notice the slate tiles on left house in the original pair, there are almost no slate roofs left in this neighbourhood now.
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| This original Federation house still has a slate roof and some ridge decoration! Highest points still show hailstorm damage and new slates. |
- To re-roof quickly, I suspect many Federation feature chimneys were removed at this time.
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| Hailstorm moved north through Sydney's inner eastern suburbs |
- I was in the Chippendale area during the storm of 1999, and with myown eyes saw hail bigger than cricket balls, some were half-housebrick size;
- a TAFE teacher showed me a hailstone roughly the size of a house brick!
- Many car rear windows were punched through by just one hailstone!
- The sound of hail smashing down resembled an express train rumbling by.
- Since these storms, masonry roofing tiles now have a degree of dissatisfaction in view of the impact energy of such large hailstones. Of course any 80-year old slate or masonry tiles would have been smashed by such hailstones.
- "The downpour of an estimated 500,000 tonnes of hail across Sydney suburbia resulted in widespread damage on the coastal suburbs in its path. Insured losses due to the disaster reached roughly A$1.7 billion, with total costs estimated to be around A$2.3 billio The storm was the costliest natural disaster ever to hit Australia in terms of insured losses, surpassing the 1989 Newcastle earthquake by around A$600 million. Source: Wikipedia
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