Plight of South Australia’s country towns after storms plunge them into darkness
SADDLEWORTH resembled a ghost town as its 400 residents were without power for a staggering 38 hours, which forced all but two businesses to close their doors.
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READ BELOW: Blackout? Why not throw another brew on the barbie
SADDLEWORTH resembled a ghost town as its 400 residents were without power for a staggering 38 hours, which forced all but two businesses to close their doors.
The town, 108km from Adelaide, was one of the worst affected in the Mid North along with Crystal Brook, which was also completely off the grid for 34 hours affecting nearly 800 homes.
Mid North towns were among the last in the state to regain power on Thursday, but not before already struggling country businesses had to throw out thousands of dollars of spoiled produce.
Saddleworth Meats owner Dene Spratt was yet to determine the cost to his business, but knew it would be in the “thousands” having already thrown away seafood and meat, as well as being unable to fill commercial orders.
“I’ve lost sheep, half a pig and a quarter of a steer because it’s too warm I had to throw it away. I just can’t take the risk. Pubs are screaming out for schnitzels and steak and I can’t feed them,” Mr Spratt said.
Mr Spratt had to constantly drive his delivery truck to keep its refrigeration element cool to store meat inside.
“The day the power went out I had a delivery come from Adelaide and we can’t use other cool rooms because they’re not certified,” Mr Spratt said.
“It’s already tough in the country areas, we can’t afford this happening.
“It’s absolute bullshit, blackouts just shouldn’t happen or for this long.”
The town’s power went out about midnight on Tuesday night and was not restored to by SA Power Network until after 2pm on Thursday.
It was believed to be the fourth blackout Saddleworth has suffered in the past year. In May the town also lost its supermarket to a fire and was struggling to recover.
Gilbert Valley Hotel owner Brian Latimer borrowed two generators from a patron to keep the pub’s doors open and managed to serve fish and chips to residents on Wednesday night.
“We did think the power would’ve come back a lot sooner, so we’ve had to limit the bags of ice to residents,” Mr Latimer said.
“But there’s no point whinging about it, we just have to get on with it and our doors have stayed open.”
Mr Latimer said the loss of SA Power Network field officers in the past six months was likely to have had an impact on the response time to turn Saddleworth’s power on.
At Crystal Brook, the town’s residents started to gradually receive power from 11am on Thursday, however at 5pm last night, there were still 127 homes without electricity.
Kupsch Bakery owner Cindy Kupsch said estimated she had to throw up to $4000 worth of produce in the bin as a result of the blackout.
“Quite a few traders are annoyed and I know Foodland has had to throw out products, too,” Ms Kupsch said.
“We don’t know who to contact for compensation.”
Fortunately, the town’s hospital and its five patients and 12 aged care residents were able to stay cool with a generator provided on site.
Clare also still had 214 homes still without power at 5pm on Thursday.
Blackout? Why not throw another brew on the barbie
By Renato Castello
A STROKE of Aussie ingenuity has kept one Adelaide Hills shop trading through South Australia’s power outage but for another the blackout could ruin New Year’s plans.
Instead of catering for an expected tourist rush, many businesses in the popular tourist town of Stirling had on Thursday shut up shop, losing thousands in potential trade.
But when faced without a working coffee machine Mount Barker Rd shop Red Cacao Chocolatier brought in a barbecue to keep the coffee pouring.
Barista Yvi Ullmer was boiling water on the barbecue hotplate and serving hot chocolate and filtered coffee to grateful customers, some who were visiting the region from interstate.
“I’ve definitely never done coffee on a barbecue before,” she said.
Stirling lost its power just after midnight Wednesday and power was expected to be restored by last night.
Red Cacao owner Marcus Booth-Remmers expected his business, which makes chocolates, cakes and ice-cream on site, to be “up for a lot” in terms of lost trade and wastage.
“We’ve got insurance but don’t know what it will cover,” he said.
The blackout and others earlier this year had forced him to order a $1500 diesel generator that was expected to arrive on Thursday afternoon, ensuring that his main fridge could continue to operate during any future outage.
ATMs were out of service across much of the Hills communities and phone reception was unreliable. At neighbouring restaurant, The Locavore, executive chef Fred Monaghan was facing the prospect of throwing out an estimated $2000 in fresh produce, which came on top of thousands in lost trade.
He said if power was not restored by last night it would prevent his ability to order fresh produce for today’s service and potentially into the weekend.
”It will have a knock-on effect as we won’t be able to put on our normal menu for Friday or New Year’s Eve,” he said.