Nobber tourist describes hailstones "the size of sliotars" as freak storm hits Lake Garda

A holiday maker from Nobber has told of how a terrifying freak storm forced her family to seek shelter after hailstones "the size of sliotars” rained down on their camp resort in Northern Italy on Sunday night.

Macaire Hutchinson’s dream holiday turned to a nightmare as a violent storm wreaked havoc on the Eurocamp Bella Italia on Lake Garda in Peschiera del Garda leaving their accommodation destroyed.

"It has been very temperamental since we came here last Thursday, there has been torrential rain a couple of the days and there have been thunder storms almost every night, we were shin deep in water at one point but was out of nowhere,” said Macaire.

“There was thunder and lightening for well over an hour, it was like an absolute light show. Small enough hail stones started, it was a bit bizarre but then we heard this almighty crashing noise, it sounded like a stampede coming from behind us and we kind of copped what was happening and we literally ran inside our safari tent and I bundled the kids under the bed and hailstones, not the size of golf balls, they were sliotars were coming from the sky.

"It totally destroyed the tent that we were in, it was terrifying.”

The aftermath of the freak weather event “looked like a scene from a sci fi movie” according to Macaire, a firefighter with Nobber Fire Station.

"It was like a battle field yesterday morning, people were walking around with bandages after being injured, some of them were hit by broken glass. Walking around it’s still an absolute mess, there were dead birds floating in the lake yesterday.

"It looks like somebody took a gun and shot all of the cars, the windscreens, body work are all smashed

“It’s like scene from the The Day After Tomorrow."

A huge clean up operation in currently underway for the unprecedented situation as the Nobber woman explains;

"I’d say every building and mobile home here has damage done to it. Since yesterday morning, there has been a huge clean up going on, the pool is shut, there is barely a sun lounger left, the restaurant windows are all smashed.

" There was a guy I was talking to from Eurocamp who has been working here sixteen years and he said he has never seen anything like it. They have cancelled people’s bookings and everything because they have nowhere to put them. People were arriving yesterday and they were turned away.

"The accommodation we were in, there were six safari tents and four out of the six are destroyed.”

Macaire has praised the camp operator and says she hopes her family can remain in the mobile home they were placed in after their tent was destroyed until they leave for Ireland on Thursday.

"All of our stuff got absolutely saturated because the tent came in on top of us when we were under the bed so all of our clothes and everything were destroyed, we are just trying to dry everything and go back to normal holiday mode if we can.

"Eurocamp has been very good and they have been doing their best for us, I can’t fault them.”

The firefighter is looking on the bright side and says she is thankful that nobody was seriously injured. She added:

"We were after being in Gardaland and left a little bit earlier. We got a bus to the train station and we walked back up here so if we had been caught out in it I don’t know what we would have done, the hailstones were so big they could have killed you."