SUNDAY night and Monday morning saw Portland battered by strong winds which brought down trees and tore roofs from homes.

Portland SES Unit Controller Scott McFarlane said crews had a busy 24-hour period.

“We’ve had 50 call outs in the last 24 hours (between Sunday evening and Monday morning),” he said yesterday morning.

“We had to clear trees off the road to get to those jobs.

“We've probably cleared close to 80 to 100 trees off the road.”

Mr McFarlane said along with downed trees the SES responded to building damage which was a third of all call outs.

“We’ve had quite a few properties damaged and trees coming down in driveways,” he said.

“The whole entire roof has blown off in some cases.”

Mr McFarlane said SES volunteers worked throughout Sunday night and into Monday morning in Portland and Heywood.

“We had a really good turnout,” he said.

On Monday morning, part of the verandah of the Salvation Army Thrift Shop on Percy St, Portland went flying and hit a nearby car. 

Port of Portland Harbour Master Andrew Hays said the storms affected operations at the harbour and some activities had to cease all together.

“We stopped shipping movements due to the wind,” he said.

“It was safe enough to leave the ships at berth that were already in.

“We couldn't do any movements over the weekend, and we also got people to go around and make sure everything was secured so anything that could blow away was tied down or put away.”

Mr Hays said the weather had been unusual with water levels quite high but there were no reports of damage to either ships or port infrastructure

Mr Hays also said wind gusts were severe with the gauges readings gusts of more than 100km/h.

“We also had quite significant readings overnight…...65 knots at 1.20am (Monday morning), so that’s 130km/h.

“There were significant wave heights of four and a half metres today (Monday morning) and overnight they were about four metres.”

According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology wind gusts at Cape Nelson hit 98km/h at 1.30am on Monday morning.

In Dartmoor, the highest wind gust recording between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning was 95km/h.

Glenelg Council was yesterday forced to several children’s services including Portland Child and Family Complex, Jaycee Kindergarten and Kalbarri Kindergarten when power was lost.

A spokesperson for the council said there were multiple calls for assistance.

“As of 11am this (Monday) morning, there have been around 45 weather-related incidents reported by the community that council is responding to,” the spokesperson said.

“The teams have been working since around 3am this morning.

“Power is lost at some council sites and the refuelling at the Portland Airport is down.

“Council’s priority at this stage is the response, and we have not yet conducted a full assessment of any damage due to ongoing hazardous conditions.”

A Powercor Australia spokesperson said the whole of town of Portland lost power on early Monday morning.

“The majority of those affected had power restored at 8am with 440 customers still requiring assistance as of 9.45am Monday morning,” the spokesperson said.

“The vast majority of outages were caused by tree branches falling on power lines or debris hitting the power lines.”

The Powercor spokesperson said downed power lines shouldn’t be approached.

“If anyone comes across a downed power line, please treat it as live and stay well clear,” the spokesperson said.