Commuters stranded as storm hits Sydney, four people in hospital after lightning strike

Sydneysiders are set to endure a tough peak hour journey home after a sudden storm swept through the NSW east coast on Monday afternoon, leaving tens of thousands of homes and businesses without power and four people in hospital after being struck by lightning.

Train stations between North Sydney and Gordon in the city’s north were shut after lightning struck train equipment on the North Shore and Western train lines. Trains were not running from North Sydney to the city, and buses heading to the city were not stopping at North Sydney, leaving hundreds wet and stranded at bus stops.

Heavy rain falls on the Sydney CBD on Monday afternoon.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

A spokesperson for Transport for NSW asked passengers to delay their trips, saying replacement buses had been ordered but were not yet on site.

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe weather warning for the city, warning of flash flooding across the Greater Sydney region, with hail predicted around the Mid North Coast.

Dramatic time-lapse vision captured the moment the heavens opened up over Sydney, with the city blanketed in grey clouds and torrential rain, sending city workers running for cover.

Four people were struck by lightning under a tree at the Royal Botanic Gardens, near the Opera House, as the storm hit. A spokeswoman for NSW Ambulance said paramedics were called to the gardens about 12.45pm, right when the worst of the storm was hitting the city.

A time-lapse video captures the storm sweeping through Sydney on Monday.Credit: Alex Mayes Photography

Four patients – a teenage boy, a woman in her 20s, and a man and woman both in their 30s – were knocked unconscious when the lighting struck and all four suffered burns.

Two patients were taken to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and two to St Vincent’s Hospital in stable conditions.

About 13,000 households and businesses around Balgowlah and Seaforth were left in a blackout after the storm damaged electricity services, provider Ausgrid said, due to an overhead power line that ran between Beacon Hill and Allambie being hit.

“Our crews are on the ground and will work to restore power as soon as it’s safe to do so,” the company said.

Train delays at North Sydney have left hundreds stranded.Credit: Jamie Berry

Traffic lights were also blacked out on Kenneth Road and Condamine Street at Manly Vale.

And several thousand homes and businesses had outages in Hornsby, Turramurra, Thornleigh and Belrose.

All outages were all caused by lightning strikes, said an Ausgrid spokesperson. “Just like a house has a trip system … when lightning hits a part of a network it automatically trips and turns off so we can inspect for any physical damage before we re-energise,” a spokesperson said.

Ausgrid expected service to return to the area by the evening.

The Bureau of Meteorology said an “upper trough and series of surface troughs” were causing the city’s slow-moving thunderstorms.

Jake Phillips, a senior meteorologist with the bureau, said the storms were “coming in off the sea from the south-east and pushing in towards the north from the north-west”.

“They have dumped some pretty heavy falls,” he told 2GB, warning of further heavy rainfall across the afternoon. The rain is “likely to persist for the next little while”, he said.

The heaviest falls were recorded in Kings Langley, in Sydney’s north-west, which had 48 millimetres of rain in an hour.

As the dramatic weather unfolded, anxious fans were tracking Taylor Swift’s jet as it was approaching Sydney, though she landed safely just before 1.30pm. One runway at Kingsford Smith was damaged in the storms, causing departure delays of about one hour. It has since reopened.

An SES spokesman said Castle Hill, in Sydney’s north-west, was bearing the brunt of the bad weather with multiple calls for help to flooded homes.

An automatic flash flooding alarm was triggered on Bexley Road in Earlwood.

NSW SES Assistant Commissioner Sean Kearns said falls could reach up to 100 millimetres up the coast.

“The NSW SES has prepositioned personnel throughout the region, and we are well-resourced to respond to any calls for assistance,” he said.

“I would encourage the public to follow the advice of emergency service personnel on the ground and not to drive through floodwater.”