SES volunteer returns home to find family trapped, house destroyed by freak storm

An SES hero who left his home to help his neighbours following a night of destructive storms in Victoria returned to find it destroyed, with his family trapped inside.

Ben Owen has been a member of the SES for 17 years and went to check on his neighbours this morning, but got a call to return home after a tree collapsed onto his Cockatoo house in the Dandenong Ranges.

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His wife and two daughters, aged 12 and 14, were trapped inside for some time until they were able to be safely removed.

"I went to check the neighbours were alright and I thought 'I better get out and help the SES'," he told 3AW's Neil Mitchell.

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"Not five minutes up the road I got a call from my wife to say a tree was on the house."

Mr Owen, who is an SES volunteer for Emerald, said he had to break his windows in order to rescue his family.

"We had to break windows with the help of a neighbour to get them out of the house, so it was quite traumatic," he said.

"I couldn't even run up my driveway. I had to run through next door, around the shed, up the back and over the fence to get to the back part of the house and get to where they were."

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Mr Owen and his family will have to stay with his parents until the house can be rebuilt.

The house has been ravaged with broken plaster and furniture scattered everywhere.

"The house has been destroyed," he said.

"Open the front door and there's a tree in the lounge room. You can't see the kitchen at the other end of the same room."