Chinderah lightning strike hits home, cuts power

A North Coast woman thought a loud crack of lightning had just been a close call until she checked to find exploded electrical equipment and damage to her home.

An internet modem in a Chinderah home was destroyed after the home was struck by lightning on Thursday night.

A Tweed Shire home was left with scorched walls after a storm lashed much of the state.

A Chinderah woman, who did not want to be identified, said she thought a lightning bolt had struck close to her home on Thursday night.

But it wasn’t until Friday morning when her son realised the internet wasn’t working that she found scorched walls around the modem.

“I didn’t even know that we’d been actually hit until this morning,” she said.

“I thought maybe (it hit) a power pole or something.”

She said there was “tonnes” of lightning and thunder in Chinderah during the storm.

A Chinderah home was struck by lightning overnight on September 30 and this was the result beside the internet modem.

An Essential Energy spokeswoman said crews responded to a number of unplanned power outages across the North Coast.

“At 10am today, power to just over 150 customers from South West Rocks to the Queensland border, are without power supply due to last night’s weather conditions,” she said.

On the Tweed, powerlines were brought down by a lightning strike near Chinderah about midnight.

It caused network protection equipment to automatically isolate the power supply to more than 1000 properties.

“Crews worked as quickly as safety would allow, restoring power to the majority of affected customers around 2am,” the spokeswoman said.

A Chinderah home was struck by lightning on Thursday night and this was the result beside the internet modem.

“Just over 150 customers remain without power while crews continue with more repair work today.”

In Coffs Harbour, power was lost to some properties in the Coffs Harbour Jetty area just after 6.30pm on Thursday after a car crashed into a power pole on Jordan Esplanade.

“Safety protection equipment operated, causing just over 1300 customers in the area to lose power,” she said.

“Essential Energy isolated the damaged power pole and was able to progressively restore power to majority of customers by approximately 8pm.”

She said crews were working to restore power to the remaining properties throughout the day.