Power outages hits 45,000 in eastern suburbs
Doctors cancelled surgeries and parients were left in the dark after a major Sydney hospital was caught up in a blackout that shut down power to 45,000 homes and businesses in the eastern suburbs for more than an hour.
NSW
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A major Sydney hospital went without power during massive blackout that affected 45,000 homes and business in the eastern suburbs for more than an hour.
Ausgrid reported the outage occurred just before 11.30am today in more than a dozen suburbs, including Randwick, Bondi, Double Bay, Coogee, Point Piper and Rose Bay.
Most traffic lights went down in the area, sending traffic into chaos.
The outage also affected services at Randwick’s Sydney Children’s Hospital and Prince of Wales Hospital, with claims on social media of rooms in darkness, including some critical areas that momentarily went without power.
A patient going for an ultra sound on her leg said lights were out in the corridors when she entered the hospital after 1pm.
“I had an appointment at 1.30pm and it was hard to find where I needed to go exactly because lights were off, some doors closed and it was dark,” the woman said.
“When I went into the doctor’s office the machine to do my scan kept turning on and off because there isn’t full power.”
She was moved to another room but even then the doctor struggled to use the machine properly.
A receptionist at the Prince of Wales hospital in the Vascular Diagnostic Centre told patients in the waiting area to expect a longer wait due to the outage.
A patient scheduled for an operation in the afternoon was furious when it was postponed until the weekend.
The woman, who didn’t wish to be named, said today’s power outage should of never happened.
“I was supposed to be having a brain operation but the hospital said they can’t risk operating on me because it’s unreliable,” she said.
“The backup generators aren’t strong enough so you can’t go around having this sort of thing happen in a serious place.”
Luckily the woman said she was in the private system, so the operation could be rescheduled quickly.
“I cannot imagine what someone on life support or in the public system is going through having to wait now longer,” the woman said.
“Our country needs to be safe and we need a constant and reliable power and the weather isn’t going to help either.”
Another woman who was in the emergency section last night and is being treated for cancer had to wait longer following the outage.
“The machines are not at full capacity and even doctors had trouble working them as they constantly went on and off,” she said.
A shopkeeper inside The Royal Hospital for Women in Randwick confirmed that the power went out which left them in the dark.
“The power outage went out at around 11.30am for an hour and I had to use a torch … we did lose business … but it was up again after,” the man said.
Power was returned to the region by 12.40pm, with Ausgrid blaming the problem with an underground cable at the Double Bay zone station
Social media users went online to air their frustration.
“I feel like we live in a 3rd world country. Who will compensate us for our spoiled food in our freezer? It states estimated time to fix is 4pm. You have to be joking! That’s three and a half hours without electricity. Surely, we can do better than that,” one user said.
Another said: “What the f**k are they doing with all the money we give them to spend on a gold plated grid?
I’m sitting in Randwick Hospital right now with my girlfriend waiting for surgery. All day surgery has been postponed until power has been restored. Some patients have waited months for this surgery, and made elaborate plans to prepare for it.
— Fred Pawle (@FredPawle) January 31, 2019
“Didn’t we “gold plate” the grid a few years ago that’s why electricity was going up in price or was that just a lie?” asked another person online.
It comes as temperatures have hit a high of 41 degrees in the west today and 40 in the city.
Rebecca Farr, meteorologist for BOM Sydney says the current heatwave has been caused by a stubborn high pressure system.
“What we have been seeing is a high pressure system over the Tasman Sea and a trough inland drawing warm air from Northern Australia into the state. This pattern has been very consistent and quite stationary over the past month, so we have been seeing very warm temperatures.”
From tonight onwards, the temperatures overnight will drop from 23 degrees to a comfortable 18-19 degrees.
Friday’s forecast will almost be 20 degrees cooler for Penrith, hovering around 25 degrees and Sydney is expected to hit 24 degrees.
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