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Perth Now
3 days ago
- Climate
- Perth Now
‘This was crazy': WA man caught up in eye of freak tornado
A Great Southern man who was caught in the eye of a freak tornado and thrown 30m into a fence on a Frankland River farm on Tuesday said he is grateful he's 'still standing up'. Darcy Clode was putting up steel posts for fencing on the crop and sheep farm about 12.30pm when he saw the 'cockeyed bob' ripping up trees as it moved towards him. The fencing contractor sheltered inside his ute with his dog, who was asleep in the back seat, until he felt the back end of the vehicle lifting up off the ground. Mr Clode's dog was sleeping the back seat of the ute when the tornado came through. Credit: Melissa Sheil 'I thought I better get out of there and make way so as I got out of my ute it picked up and I tried to scurry away a bit but by then it had knocked me into the ground,' he said. 'I could see the tractor and thought 'oh next thing the tractor's coming down on top of me' but before you know it, I was flat on the deck and thrown into the fence and it was all over. 'I couldn't really see much since there was a lot of dirt flying around, and it was sort of natural instinct to hit the ground, cover your head, protect yourself from major injuries but there wasn't really much I could do with that much force. 'You're sort of pushed against the fence and held there.' Mr Clode was taken to hospital and treated for leg wounds. Credit: Melissa Sheil Mr Clode was taken to Albany Health Campus for treatment for a deep cut and scrapes on his leg, but it was his machinery that took the real beating. The cabin roof of his HiLux work ute caved in after it flipped over with its attached trailer, and his tractor had its windows blown out and roof torn off. Lasting about five minutes, the tornado began at the north-west corner of the farm and moved down to the south-east corner at what property owner Nathan Waterman believed to be speeds of about 250km/h. 'I think we've had these cockeyed bobs before in other areas, but, yeah, nothing like this, this was crazy,' he said. Mr Waterman said Mr Clode was completely covered in dirt and mud when he arrived. Credit: Melissa Sheil 'We just thought it was Armageddon when we got here, we couldn't believe what we were looking at. We didn't know what we were looking at, actually.' He said his property suffered some 'extensive damage' with fences and trees torn out, but his crops and livestock fortunately got out relatively unscathed. 'The sheep haven't moved from the top of the paddock, I think they're as far away from the tornado as you could possibly get,' Mr Waterman said. Mr Clode said the extreme machinery damage is tough on a small business. Credit: Melissa Sheil A Bureau of Meteorology spokesperson confirmed the event to be a tornado and said that WA has an average of five tornadoes during the cool season. Mr Clode, who was back at work on Wednesday, said he's grateful to 'still be standing' but it's 'not something you'd want to endure every day'. 'Yeah, it wasn't on my bucket list of things to go through but it's a good one for the grandkids,' he said. The strong winds flipped the ute and a trailer. Credit: Nathan Waterman The roof of the ute caved in when it was flipped. Credit: Melissa Sheil
Wall Street Journal
11-04-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
House of the Week: A Midcentury Modern Home With Loads of Natural Light
Jon Leafstedt and Oliver Clode's San Francisco home has no shortage of windows. There are about 70 throughout the house, some of which include stained-glass panels of purple, yellow and blue. 'The whole house just has amazing light because of all the windows,' says Clode, 64, a retired retail executive who's worked at Amazon, Williams-Sonoma and Foot Locker. 'I'm always in a good mood when I walk into any of the rooms.' Leafstedt and Clode paid $751,000 for the house in the city's Diamond Heights neighborhood in 2000. Fans of midcentury-modern design, the pair wanted a stylish home with a fenced-in yard for their Gordon setter dogs. Sold on the property's indoor-outdoor layout, they became only the second owners in the home's roughly 60-year history, said Leafstedt, 63, an artist and former executive at Williams-Sonoma, Nike, Esprit and Liz Claiborne. Built in 1962, the house has a sunken living room and an off-center, gas fireplace. Off the living room, glass doors lead out to a patio, surrounded by greenery and Glen Canyon Park beyond. The light-filled rooms, stained glass and indoor-outdoor setup are typical of architect Max Garcia's few residential designs. Garcia taught himself the fundamentals of architecture in 1943 while hiding from the Nazis, says his daughter Michelle Garcia Winner. Garcia, a Jewish man from the Netherlands, was confined in several concentration camps, including Auschwitz, until he was liberated in 1945. Garcia moved to the U.S. and became a licensed architect, primarily working with commercial clients like Bank of America, Intel and Pacific Bell. He ended up designing a handful of private homes during his career. Knowing Garcia's story 'tied us more to the house,' says Leafstedt. 'It made it so much more special.' It was important to Leafstedt and Clode that their roughly $700,000 renovation preserve Garcia's original vision, they said. They replaced the layered, cantilevered roof as well as the windows, removed shag carpeting and updated the kitchen and bathrooms. They also added a deck and built out the landscaping, adding succulents, trees and a giant rock that had to be craned in, said Clode. The kitchen has a Dutch door, a breakfast nook and lots of cabinetry—which Clode and Leafstedt added to store their eight sets of dishes, plus glassware, servingware and silverware. As former Williams-Sonoma executives, they developed a taste for elaborate tablescapes, which became a regular feature in their open-plan living and dining room. 'Having run tabletop at Sonoma, we have more dishes than most San Franciscans,' says Leafstedt. Since their retirement, Leafstedt and Clode are spending more time at their Sonoma home. 'I think the time is right to hand it over to a new steward,' says Leafstedt. 'This isn't a house we flipped. This is a house we hung out in for a really long time.' San Francisco's real-estate market has rebounded in the past year as more residents return to the area after the pandemic, said listing agent Nina Hatvany of Compass. In suburban Diamond Heights, sales typically top out around $6 million. So far this year, six single-family homes have traded for a median $2.35 million, up from five single-family home sales of a median $1.85 million during the same period last year, according to Compass. Write to Sarah Paynter at
