Dust storm cost NSW millions

<p>Sydney and Brisbane woke up to <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/clear-skies">clear skies</a> this morning after choking under an orange <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/g">G</a>lare yesterday as the <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/intense-dust-storm">intense dust storm</a> swept up the <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/east-coast">east coast</a>.<span style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana,'Lucida <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/g">G</a>rande','Bitstream Vera Sans',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-size: 12px; text-align: left;" class="Apple-style-span"> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; font-family: Verdana,'Lucida <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/g">G</a>rande','Bitstream Vera Sans',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">This morning <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/health-experts">health experts</a> said the danger from <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/particle-pollution">particle pollution</a> had passed but New South Wales is expected to be counting the cost of lost productivity for weeks.</p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; font-family: Verdana,'Lucida Grande','Bitstream Vera Sans',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">"When the environment is such that it's not healthy to work outside, that causes a lot of <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/disruption">disruption</a>," Mark Goodsell from the Australian <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/industry">Industry</a> Group said.</p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; font-family: Verdana,'Lucida Grande','Bitstream Vera Sans',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">"The other major area was just the flow-on effect from having something like the airport shut down.</p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; font-family: Verdana,'Lucida Grande','Bitstream Vera Sans',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">"People expect to be able to hop on a plane in Melbourne, land in Sydney and be at a meeting by 9 or 10 o'clock. And that didn't happen yesterday so there was a lot of flow-on <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/disruption">disruption</a>."</p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; font-family: Verdana,'Lucida Grande','Bitstream Vera Sans',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">He also pointed to the loss of <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/hundreds-of-thousands">hundreds of thousands</a> of <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/tonnes">tonnes</a> of <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/topsoil">topsoil</a> in the state's west.</p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; font-family: Verdana,'Lucida Grande','Bitstream Vera Sans',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">"That's the real story of yesterday, what kind of damage is being done permanently to the rural landscape," he said.</p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; font-family: Verdana,'Lucida Grande','Bitstream Vera Sans',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">The <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/weather-bureau">weather bureau</a> says winds could whip up a smaller dust storm over the weekend.</p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; font-family: Verdana,'Lucida Grande','Bitstream Vera Sans',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Meanwhile, SES <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/volunteers">volunteers</a> are still hard at work, responding to 200 outstanding calls about <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/wind-damage">wind damage</a>.</p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; font-family: Verdana,'Lucida Grande','Bitstream Vera Sans',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">They received more than <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/8">8</a>50 calls in total, just over half of them in Sydney.</p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; font-family: Verdana,'Lucida Grande','Bitstream Vera Sans',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Emergency Service <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/mini">Mini</a>ster Steve Whan has applauded the <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/volunteers">volunteers</a>' hard work.</p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; font-family: Verdana,'Lucida Grande','Bitstream Vera Sans',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">"The dust was quite spectacular, but didn't in itself cause a lot of damage," he said. "The wind, though, caused damage to over 400 trees and about 266 roof damage calls.</p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; font-family: Verdana,'Lucida Grande','Bitstream Vera Sans',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">"So the SES was kept very busy with that and they've still got about 200 remaining to be done, because in many cases they couldn't get onto <a href="http://cfd.net.au/home/topic/roofs">roofs</a> yesterday because the wind was just too strong."</p> </span></span></p>