Milk truck crash, car inferno, pony club damaged as wild storm hits Berry

The first call came in just after 5am on Saturday after a dairy truck crashed on Coolangatta Road, near Swamp Road, with spilt milk left flooding the road.

"Thankfully the majority of the load was able to be saved and the spilt milk was contained," Fire and Rescue NSW Berry crews said.

Then, around 2pm, a severe weather warning was issued for people in Nerriga, Nowra, Berry, Bowral and western fringes of the Illawarra that damaging winds, large hail and heavy rain was on the way.

The storm hit around 6.30pm and centred on Berry with strong winds and heavy rain bringing down trees and power lines onto vehicles and roads, and amid it all a car erupted in flames on Ford Street.

The roof was was ripped off Berry Pony Club as strong wind gusts of 56km/h were recorded in Point Perpendicular and 54km/h in Nowra.

During the storm 24 millimetres of rain was recorded in Point Perpendicular in just 40 minutes on Saturday night.

Nowra received just 9.6mm of rain and Jervis Bay had 16mm during the storm.

SES crews received 319 emergency calls for help during the storm including 59 in the south-eastern zone, of those 20 were for Berry.

"The majority of the calls relating to incidents in Berry were received between 7pm and 8.30pm," a SES spokeswoman said.

"The jobs were all storm related for damaged and leaking rooves and trees down. The Nowra Unit also responded to the Berry Pony Club were a roof was blown off the club building."

The pony club told its members about the damage confirming that a large tree also fell and crushed some fences in the yard.

"While our small group of volunteers are still figuring out how to fix this mess, we were very lucky to have some amazing helpers with their chainsaws come and make it possible to gain access to the shed," the club said.

"Thank you, Aaron and Pop, for all your hard work today. Now, we try and get the grounds usable for the kids."