Australia Weather News

Residents in the South West WA town of Harvey, 140 kilometres south of Perth, are facing a big clean-up after a severe storm left homes flooded.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) recorded more than 40 millimetres of rain at Dingo Road, east of the town site, in the hour to 2:30pm yesterday.

Resident Kendall Bingham said the storm that eventuated was unlike any he had seen in the area before.

"I've been in Harvey over seven years, and I've never, ever, ever seen anything like that in my whole time here," he said.

"We thought it was just going to be a normal day, you know, like a bit of rain here and there.

"It came unannounced and got everyone by surprise."

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services told the ABC it received six calls for help with water ingress.

Ahead of the storm, BOM issued a warning to residents in Collie and Harvey, flagging the risk of severe thunderstorms and potential heavy rainfall.

Mr Bingham said his property was inundated within an hour.

"I walked out the front, and the whole road, the whole front yard, the whole backyard was about 20 centimetres underwater," he said. 

"The water just kept rising and rising and rising, and I thought, 'How deep is this going to go?'"

Mr Bingham said he had never had an experience like it. 

Water inside to 'my ankles'

Harvey resident Erin Batty has had her makeshift apartment, in her mother's patio area, badly damaged by yesterday's deluge.

She said as the rain got heavier,water started coming throughthe roof and under the doors.

"We couldn't really get out because it started to rise and was up to my ankles," Ms Batty said.

"All the carpets were completely saturated.

"We tried to get sandbags, but they turned into mud bags, and it just was getting so high that we could do nothing but get our own hand pumps and pump it out.

"It got so high that in the driveway it goes up to [our] knees."

Today, as Ms Batty looks to do the clean-up, she is overwhelmed by the damage and the mess.

"It looks disgusting right now, there's all this stuff from the road and just like swept into the house. It is so damaged that we don't even know where to start,"she said.

"When we look at it, we're just like, do we, can we even keep any of this?"