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.
A Bureau of Meteorology spokesman said it was "very rare to get a tornado inside Sydney, much less a strong tornado".
"That is the fastest speed that has been recorded in NSW history," he said.
Shoppers were evacuated from Westfield in Bondi after part of the ceiling collapsed while hail and heavy winds and rain bombarded the CBD.
Waiter Michael Seeff said customers ran out before paying the bill.
"Water was coming down the sides of the walls and onto the floor," he told AAP.
Kurnell local Melanie Bowman said tiles had come off her roof and powerlines were down.
"I can see the sky from our garage ... I can see lots of parts of roofs in the street," she said.
"It felt just like a cyclone with hail and high winds."
Sutherland Shire Mayor Carmelo Pesce said he had been in contact with the office of federal treasurer and local member Scott Morrison, and expects the minister to make an announcement on Thursday about the government's disaster response.
Kurnell Public School also suffered damage, with a tree falling on a classroom and the roof blown off another.
No one was injured with staff and students shifted to a nearby high school, a Department of Education spokesman said.
Three people were injured and Sydney's Desalination Plant was extensively damaged in the storm that battered Sydney's south.
CEO Keith Davies said no one was seriously hurt, but it was too early to determine the precise extent of the damage at the Kurnell plant, or the repair bill.
"Site operators were able to get into a safe place during the storm, and are in the process of making the site safe now," Mr Davies told AAP.
"No one has been seriously injured but one person has been taken to local hospital with minor injuries."
He said it was an extraordinary event.
"Right now, people's safety is coming first," he said.
Images of damage in Kurnell show the destructive force of the first storm cell.
A talkback radio caller reported destructive winds ripped roofs off houses, felled trees and sent trampolines 80 metres into the air.
"I spotted a trampoline flying through the air about 80 metres just out of blue," Peter told ABC 702 Sydney.
"I'm in a double-storey brick house and the tiles off are in the bathrooms. Metre-thick trees are down everywhere.
"I seen a plane come in - and I don't know how he got out of it.
"The pilot needs a gold medal because he took off, he sort of committed to landing and he had to sort of pull out of it. I don't know where he went, but I'm glad I wasn't on the plane."
He said he was on the phone when he saw the weather change very quickly from a light sprinkle of rain to strong winds.
"I was on the phone to my boss and I spotted the next door neighbour's fence fly over the back of my house."
Sydney Airport has confirmed it is still open but has advised travellers to check on the status of their flights.
Social media users posted images and video of the wild weather and massive hail stones.
The storm's path of destruction:
Weather
* Freak tornado hit Kurnell in Sydney's south about 10:30am on Wednesday
* Wind gust of 213km/h recorded in Kurnell at 10:33am, the fastest wind speed recorded in NSW history
* 32mm of rain in half an hour at Cronulla up until 1:19pm
Response
* About 500 calls to the SES for help, likely to rise, according to NSW SES
* Homes in Kurnell will be without power and sewerage until Thursday at the earliest
Injured
* 40-year-old man with head injuries
* 78-year-old woman received cuts to her leg
* Man, age not known, struck by debris on Bridges Street
* Bondi Junction shopper hit by debris treated for minor injuries
Damaged
* Residential and business properties losing roofs, windows and experiencing severe internal flooding
* Two trucks rolled over by record speed winds on Chisholm Street near the Caltex refinery
* Sydney's desalination plant's roof torn off, extensive damage throughout site
Evacuated
* Affected residents to Cronulla Leagues Club
* Kurnell Public School children and a childcare centre
* Sydney's desalination plant
* 300 workers from Caltex Australia's Kurnell refinery
* Residents' animals to Sutherland Shire Animal Shelter
Source: Bureau of Meteorology
