Photo: © 2010 AAP/TONY BARTLETT

The cyclone-force waterspout crossed the coast near Lennox Heads around 7.30 this morning.

It toppled brick walls, tore apart buildings, tipped over caravans, brought down powerlines and left a mother and daughter hospitalised with head injuries. It then headed south.

The SES has described it as a "severe thunderstorm with an embedded water spout".

One Lennox Head resident, who had his windows smashed by flying pieces of wood, had a different expression..

"It [was] pretty full on," he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

"The town has been sealed off by police to make sure no sight-seeing takes place."

A caller to ABC Radio said the twister sent "sheets of roofing spinning into the air and anything else that it can pick up".

"It sounded like a jet was coming in to land on our house," he told the station.

"A friend of ours has been injured and they can't get out; no ambulances can get in because of the powerlines."

A Ballina coastguard has told the Daily Telegraph that everything went white and it was "like a washing machine out there".

The twister topped of a week of wild weather in the state, where storms have been lashing coastal areas.