Riverland and Mid North homes and businesses hit by electrical storms, power outages continue

Thousands of homes and businesses lost power after ferocious storms swept across SA, bringing down trees and damaging signs. See the footage

Renmark’s Kentucky Fried Chicken lost its big bucket, while the local McDonald’s sign fell to the floor in a wild electrical storm that left over 2700 homes without power on Sunday morning.

There are reports that traffic into Renmark is gridlocked for kilometres on the Sturt Highway, with side streets turned to slosh after rain battered the area.

On Saturday afternoon, 8500 homes and businesses were left without electricity after thunderstorms passed through the Mid North and Riverland.

KFC Renmark lost its bucket in the storm. Picture: Riverland Forum

Supplied Editorial A Renmark street reduced to a mudslide following a storm. Picture: Supplied

The worst-affected areas were Renmark and Monash, with around 3500 affected. Coomandook, Pinnaroo and Tailem Bend in the Murray Mallee were also hit.

In Renmark, one eyewitness said a brief but savage storm toppled many trees.

A huge hailstorm also hit the region, transforming Berri’s Big River Golf and Country Club into a makeshift ice arena.

In the Mid North, areas around Spalding, Jamestown and Burra were worst hit, affecting about 2400 customers.

SA Power Networks spokesman Paul Roberts said its SMS system had informed most customers and updates on restoration times were available at on the SA Power Networks website.

“Some of these will be difficult as crews have to find a damaged insulator on hundreds of kilometres of power lines,’’ he said.

“There were reports of a lot of lightning strikes especially around the Mid North.

The storm hit the Sturt Highway near Renmark with ferocity. Picture: Supplied

Trees were ripped out of the ground along the Sturt Highway near Renmark during the storm. Picture: Sam Owens.

“We have crews on most of those already, but because of the locations and the task, restoration times may change when crews get on site.”

The storms hit after a Bureau of Meteorology warning at 4:02pm for “damaging winds, large hailstones and heavy rainfall” across areas including the Riverland, Mid North, Murraylands and North East Pastoral districts. By 6pm, there were 13 outages affecting 6159 customers.

Saturday’s storm followed wild weather across the state last week, where hail caused more than $100m damage to crops.