Authorities have said it could take weeks to fully restore homes and roads in parts of the Sunshine Coast following a severe storm on Saturday night.

Residents have been warned there are still powerlines down on roads and rail lines on the Sunshine Coast, with Beerwah, Landsborough and Buderim among the worst storm-affected areas.

Almost 500 homes are still without power and the rail line between Caboolture and Caboolture North remains closed.

Sunshine Coast Council's acting disaster manager Cathy Buck said the damage bill was likely to be hundreds of thousand of dollars.

"There is a lot of clean-up going on around the Landsborough, Beerwah area in particular with trees and debris being removed. Energex is still working extremely hard to get power on," she said.

Insurance Council Australia spokesman Campbell Fuller said residents should try and itemise the damage.

"It helps things if you can make a list of what is damaged or destroyed either on the home itself or the contents ... that will help the assessor," he said.

Mr Fuller said insurers were ready to start working on claims.

"Most of them do have 24-hour hotlines and can start handling calls and claims straight away, and if you can't find your insurance documents, don't worry about those. They are electronically available and so the insurer will be able to easily find your details," he said.

The owner of a Landsborough service station, Cheryl Rutland-Lockett, said it would take several weeks to clean-up the mess in her business.

"It was actually really quite scary, [the road] was covered in trees and we literally had to go on the wrong side of the road.

"Every tree had just been blown over, just been pushed over like dominoes."

Resident Julie-Ann Houston said it was the worst storm she had seen in her 25 years as a Landsborough resident.

Houses in Beerwah were significantly damaged by falling trees. ( Supplied: Cade Mooney )

"We were just sitting out the front on the deck that's practically not there anymore ... and we'd only been inside about 60 seconds when the tree came down," she said.

Resident Darren Carey described the moment the storm came through.

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"It sounded like a freight train coming through everyone's yard and then it went all hazy and black," he said.

"You could just see trees flying through the air and then branches started spearing into the yard."

Brad Borham said his family had a close call, when his mother became trapped in their granny flat during the storm.

"She was screaming … there was water pouring in from a broken sky light and she was trying to close a window to stop the wind," he said.

The roof of a house on Sidney Drive in Beerwah was significantly damaged. ( Supplied: Cade Mooney )

Mr Borham said he was relieved no-one was injured.

"We can fix the house up, but we certainly wouldn't have been able to repair any human damage," he said.



Ms Buck said the Coast's road network had been damaged.

Some parts of the Coast copped 119 millimetres of rain in an hour on Saturday, while the Gold Coast hinterland was battered with golf-ball-sized hailstones.

As of Sunday afternoon, the State Emergency Service had received 112 requests for assistance, as roofs collapsed and properties were destroyed by the system.

Major roads including Steve Irwin Way were closed until midday due to debris and significant flood water damage.

Queensland Rail suspended trains between Gympie and Caboolture until Tuesday.

Australia Zoo was also forced to close, as staff cleaned up after the storm.

The Zoo issued a statement on Sunday stating all animals were safe and the facilities would reopen Monday.

"The decision to close during the clean-up was not made lightly, however, our guest, animal and staff safety is our priority at all times," read the statement.

Residents are cleaning up after the massive storm in Landsborough. ( ABC News: Bruce Atkinson )

According to Energex, the region was hit with more than 130,000 lightning strikes.

Jonty Hall from the Bureau of Meteorology said the damage came mostly from heavy winds and rainfall.

"Part of late spring, early summer we often get these kind of set ups that do support the severe storms, so it is sort of the heart of our storm season," he said.