SA Premier Jay Weatherill says little could have been done to prevent statewide power outage
SEE THE FOOTAGE: Twin tornadoes that swept across northern areas of the state and took out powerlines have been blamed for SA’s unprecedented blackout.
- ROLLING COVERAGE: Latest on SA’s wild weather
- GALLERY: How we coped with the storm and blackout
- MORE TO COME: State bracing for more storm fury after blackout
- HOW IT HAPPENED: How we reported the day’s events
TWIN tornadoes that swept across northern areas of the state and took out powerlines have been blamed for Wednesday’s “catastrophic” statewide blackout, with warnings of more to come.
Premier Jay Weatherill and emergency services heads this morning praised South Australians for their patience and calm overnight, as some households brace for days without power.
Mr Weatherill will visit the most badly affected areas of the state’s north in coming days, and emergency assistance stations are being set up in towns across SA to help people affected.
Major businesses in the state including Oz Minerals are also reeling from the blackout and shutting down operations. They are expected to be among the last to come back online.
Mr Weatherill this morning said “we remain in the middle of this event and there is also a significant way to go” as more bad weather is due today and next week.
“We’ve experienced some weather conditions that have not been seen before in this state such as twin tornadoes that ripped through the northern part of our state,” he said.
Emergency services had responded to 900 calls in the 24 hours to 11am.
Crews from WA are already helping in the clean-up, with offers from other states.
Power has been restored to 90 per cent of households, with 70,000 still in the dark.
About 40,000, mostly in the state’s north, have been warned power may be off for days.
Mr Weatherill said it was an “incredibly difficult time” for people in the state’s north and he would be travelling to the region to assess the damage and offer assistance in the coming days.
A relief station with food, water and access to up to $700 in emergency support for families is in place at Port Pirie’s Lions Football Club at Port Pirie. Others have been set up at Port Augusta Football Club and Whyalla Hockey Association, with more to come in Clare Valley, Port Lincoln and the West Coast. People needing help can call 1800 302 787 if affected.
Landlines in Port Pirie are down and parts of the Eyre Peninsula don’t have mobile or landline coverage. SA Water advises there are no problems with drinking water anywhere in the state.
Metropolitan hospitals have moved on to mains power, and 17 intensive care patients at Flinders Medical Centre last night had to move to the adjacent private hospital when a generator failed.
SA Health says no lives were put at risk, and elective surgeries are today on hold.
Parts of the Royal Adelaide Hospital were without power, but generators protected key services.
The Australian Energy Market Operator says a severe storm that damaged transmission and distribution electricity assets is likely to be the root cause of the statewide power outage.
Mr Weatherill denied the state’s high reliance on intermittent wind power played any role in the outage, or created delays as the state waits for power to be fully restored to all customers.
“These lines form the backbone of the SA network and support generation north of Adelaide and of course they play a critical role in the stability of the network,” Mr Weatherill said. “This is certainly a system that was designed to get the system back up as quickly as possible.”
He said New York recently lost power for 38 hours after a major storm.
“It took that amount of time to get it back up. I don’t know whether questions are being asked in the same way there as they are being asked here,” Mr Weatherill said.
“Here we are, within a few hours we were beginning to restore power and now within a few more hours the lion’s share of the system has been restored. These are weather events that the representative from the Bureau of Meteorology in his whole career has not seen.
“The effect that it’s had on a particular piece of infrastructure is also unprecedented.
“This is a catastrophic natural event which has destroyed our infrastructure. The system, the community in the emergency services sector have responded calmly and effectively.
“There is no infrastructure that can be developed that can protect you against catastrophic events that take out not one, not two, but three pieces of infrastructure that lead to massive fluctuations in frequency that potentially put at risk the whole of the national electricity market.
“I think most South Australians will understand that this was a catastrophic weather event.”
Three inquires will be held into the events of the past day.
The Australian Energy Market Operator will undertake further studies into the root engineering causes. The nation’s energy ministers will examine industry regulation. The State Government will look into the preparedness of its agencies and their responses.
Mr Weatherill said reports of looting were “disgusting”.
“If that has happened, it’s disgusting. The overwhelming response of our community has been wonderful. When the whole of the city was down last night, when all of the suburbs were out, we didn’t see any evidence of looting. An isolated instance is disgusting and regrettable,” he said.
Mr Weatherill said the Government was still trying to understand the affect on big industries sites like the BHP Billiton Olympic Dam mine and Arrium’s troubled Whyalla steelworks.
“What’s likely to happen is that all of the households will be able to be up and running reasonably quickly but the large industrial customers that are drawing very substantial amounts of power might take some time,” Mr Weatherill said.
Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said one unconfirmed report of looting was being investigated but “we have seen no significant changes in the reporting of property or theft”.
“There is one unconfirmed report that hasn’t been followed up yet,” he said.
“The community generally should take some credit for supporting emergency services in the patience they demonstrated, the tolerance with the circumstances and the inconvenience that went with that. It’s to be commended that we didn’t see a rash of collisions or rash behaviour that resulted in people having their safety compromised.”
The political fallout
Opposition Leader Steven Marshall said serious questions must be answered by Mr Weatherill and state Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis.
And SA Senator Nick Xenophon urged an independent inquiry, calling the outage a “disgrace”.
South Australia endured more than 80,000 lightning strikes combined with winds strong enough to rip transmission towers out of the ground.
“What we had was an extreme weather event,” Mr Weatherill said.
“The head of the Australian energy market operator told me that any system would not be able to cope with a weather system of this kind. We had winds which were so strong that when they hit power lines they created such energy they were tearing the towers out of the ground.”
“We had 80,000 lightning strikes, some of which hit our generators.
“All of these combined to bring the system down.”
He insisted the electricity system acted precisely the way it was supposed to, tripping before more damage could be inflicted on infrastructure.
“This is the system working as it was designed to work going into an extreme weather event,” Mr Weatherill said.
“Any state would be vulnerable going into a weather event of this sort.”
The premier said trying to politicise the storm and its fallout was taking attention away from where it was deserved, on the volunteers helping those in need.
“I think there is something quite unpleasant about people making political points while emergency services are out there caring for and protecting our community,” Mr Weatherill said
“At the moment we should be supporting those people seeking to keep others safe.
“There is always going to be a cheap political point to be made in these situations.
“The only people exploring political decisions tonight are politicians.”