Wild weather whips Emerald and Central West
Drone footage captures the magic of a crazy storm cell in Central West Queensland which saw hail fall and more than 11,000 left without power.
Rockhampton
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Emergency response crews have restored power to more than 11,000 Central Queensland customers but some are still waiting after a severe storm cell hit the region on Thursday afternoon.
Ergon Energy said lightning “belted” a transmission tower, bringing down high-voltage wires.
“A severe lightning storm has hit a major high-voltage line that supplies a large chunk of the Central West, knocking out power to 11,000 customers from Emerald and Clermont, west to Longreach and down to Blackall and Tambo,” Ergon said at 5.15pm on Thursday.
In an update on Friday morning, Ergon said crews were able to get supply back to all 11,000-plus customers from Clermont to Longreach on Thursday night, and power restored to Clermont and Capella before midnight.
“Specialist crews from Rockhampton will climb the lightning-hit tower on the high-voltage network into Clermont today (Friday) and tackle the tricky job of reinstating wires brought down late yesterday,” Ergon said.
“Further afield, our teams restored (power to) thousands of customers last night (Thursday) from the Gemfields to Alton Downs, and we have choppers patrolling the network in areas where boggy conditions prevented us from getting access last night.
At 9am on Friday, Ergon said: “We’re in the air around Blackwater, Bluff, Dingo, Duaringa and near Emerald, and we have fresh crews ready to roll the minute we can pinpoint the problems affecting power to around 1000 homes and businesses.”
In a noon update on Friday, Ergon said it needed to urgently interrupt power supply to the Gemfields to repair damage from the storm.
“Patrols this morning spotted the problem on a pole top on the Rubyvale/Capella line.
“To fix it safely and as efficiently as possible, we need to turn off the power until mid-afternoon, affecting 1151 homes and businesses.
“It’s been a rough few days for customers, and we’ll do all we can to keep this interruption for essential work to a minimum.”
Joshua Clarricoats of “That Emerald Photographer” took spectacular images with a drone 10 minutes after the storm passed through Emerald on Thursday.
“These were captured as soon as the storm passed,” Mr Clarricoats said.
“I sent the drone up to see what we had just dealt with.
“The storm had practically divided emerald in two with the southside of the town escaping the majority of it.
“Some on the southside even questioned whether there was even hail.”
Thursday’s storm forced the closure of Emerald State High School on Friday with the school announcing via social media it had sustained “significant damage.”
“As a result the school will be closed tomorrow (Friday) while we undertake repairs,” the school said in a Facebook post.
“More information will be provided about school access over the weekend.”
According to the Bureau of Meteorology, 14mm of rain fell at Emerald in the 24 hours to 9am Friday.
BOM figures showed 10mm of rain was recorded at Springsure in the same period, while Comet had 12mm.
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