Energex warns it could take two weeks to restore power after Tropical Cyclone Alfred

More than 230,000 homes and businesses across South East Queensland remain without power, and it could take a fortnight to restore the hardest hit areas.

Energex personal work to restore power on Osbourne St Scarborough after a tree fell onto powerlines, Scarborough. Picture: Steve Pohlner

It could take two weeks to restore power to South East Queensland communities hardest hit by ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred, with outages the worst since ex-tropical cyclone Oswald over a decade ago.

As of 10.30pm on Sunday, more than 230,000 South East Queensland homes and businesses were still without power.

They included, by local government authority:

Brisbane City: 45,139

Gold Coast City: 77,232

Gympie Regional: 1

Ipswich City: 256

Lockyer Valley Regional: 112

Logan City: 30,399

City of Moreton Bay: 35,740

Noosa: 53

Redland City: 37,287

Scenic Rim Regional: 6190

Somerset Regional: 219

Sunshine Coast: 556

Ergon Energy workers had also restored power to more than half of the 25,000 customers in the Toowoomba region.

“Our thanks to customers for your patience – this is such a tough time, especially for those who have been without power since Thursday,” an Energex post to social media read.

“We’re hearing a few rumbles that some people haven’t seen crews working their immediate area.

“Please know that we’ve forgotten nobody, and we’re throwing the kitchen sink at restoration, but the issue affecting a street could be many miles away upstream on the network.”

Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred has unleashed havoc on South East Queensland with category 1 winds and torrential rain overnight and throughout today.

Power to the Gold Coast University Hospital has been restored, Premier David Crisafulli confirmed earlier on Saturday.

Energex CEO Peter Scott said that overnight Saturday 60,000 properties had been reconnected to power following significant power outages across southeast Queensland, while more than 1000 power lines have been downed across the region.

“There’s been in excess of 1000 live lines on the ground that we’ve had to deal with,” he said.

“So please be careful, but don’t assume that they’re turned off.”

He said there were still 267,000 outages. Crews were on islands off Queensland’s coasts fixing power outages.

He said there were 850 fire and rescue crews on the ground, in almost 300 trucks, removing fallen trees and debris.

Power outages across South East Queensland overnight.

Premier David Crisafulli said it would be a massive task to restore power with significant work needed to be done to reconnect.

“We’re currently approaching a quarter of a million homes with our power,” he said.

“That’s the single biggest loss we have seen in over a decade, since Oswald.

“Queenslanders need to know that right now there are damage assessments being done and already crews are being mobilised to get that job done.”

People have been warned to be careful over fallen power lines and just because they were down didn’t mean they couldn’t still be active.