Roofs ripped off. Houses blown out. Trucks overturned and trampolines ending up five houses down the street.
These were the devastating scenes that Kurnell residents were coming to terms with on Wednesday after a tornado smashed the southern Sydney suburb.
"I can see the sky from our garage ... I can see lots of parts of roofs in the street," Kurnell resident Melanie Bowman said.
"It felt just like a cyclone with hail and high winds."
She said some houses were a "write off".
"A lot of long-standing Kurnell people who have been here for 30 years have never, ever seen anything like this," she said.
Kurnell is without power and sewerage until Thursday at the earliest with some residents forced to spend the night at an evacuation centre at the Cronulla Leagues Club, Sharkies.
Emergency services treated people for minor injuries, but no one was seriously injured.
"(It's) quite fortunate given the amount of devastation," Inspector Winston Pisani said.
The council is helping to move pets to the local animal shelter.
"This is a hard blow for the people of the Kurnell community just one week and a few days out of Christmas," an SES spokesman told reporters.
Resident Deborah Mattson said the storm was a traumatic experience and that "little flecks of yellow fuzz" from people's roof insulation was strewn all over the neighbourhood.
Ausgrid says its crews will work through the night to restore power.
"This includes six power poles that need to be replaced, cables fallen and debris on high voltage transmission powerlines," a statement said.
