Storm damage has left Broken Hill without reliable power since October 17
Powerless. That’s how the residents of the far-west NSW city of Broken Hill have felt for the past 10 days, as it struggles to survive with constant electricity outages.
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Powerless. That’s how the residents of the NSW regional city of Broken Hill have felt for the past 10 days as the town has struggled to survive with constant electricity outages.
In a scene impossible to imagine in Sydney or bigger towns like Dubbo or Bathurst, the 17,000-strong city of Broken Hill has had hardly any power since October 17, after a severe storm knocked over seven transmission lines leading into town.
The damaged towers meant a total of 20,000 people across Broken Hill, Wilcannia, White Cliffs, Menindee and other small towns were plunged into darkness – relying on dodgy generators and intermittent power for days.
HSC studies have ground to a halt with the internet cutting out, locals have gathered in clubs to cool down in the few remaining rooms with airconditioning, butchers and chemists have thrown out thousands of dollars worth of meat and medications, and the queues for petrol to power personal generators are hundreds of metres long.
For Jay Meiers, 63, the 10-day power crisis has put her in a life-or-death situation, with blackouts causing her oxygen tank to fail, leaving her gasping for air in the middle of the night.
As her blood oxygen levels plummeted to a dangerous level on Monday night, she called triple 0. When paramedics finally got there, they told her she was minutes from irreversible brain damage or death.
Today, Ms Meier, who suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, tries not to think about how the blackout nearly killed her.
“I don’t really go there. I would be in tears 24/7,” she said.
In the days since the storms, the town has been reliant upon a single diesel generator. On Monday, this generator overheated and shut down. Some residents did not have power restored until 36 hours later.
When the power did come back on it was intermittent.
Generators have been trucked in from across the country, but residents have been warned to expect to lose power with little-to-no warning for the foreseeable future, forced off the grid at night as providers try to protect back-up generators from being overloaded.
There is no end date in sight, with energy provider Transgrid hinting it could take weeks, if not months, to reconnect the town to mains electricity. The company has apologised to the community “for the disruption”.
Premier Chris Minns, who flew to Broken Hill on Wednesday, has blamed the previous Coalition government, saying the crisis is a result of their decision to privatise electricity assets and hand control of the transmission lines to Transgrid.
The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal has now begun an inquiry into Transgrid’s handling of the fiasco.
Residents are frustrated. Sydney is more than 1000km away and people in the neighbouring towns of Menindee and Wilcannia – also experiencing intermittent blackouts – feel forgotten.
HSC students, forced to study in the dark with no access to their online notes, said it was “demoralising”.
“We put in so much effort, for two years straight, and then suddenly there is a possibility I won’t be able to fully put in my most effort,” Willyama High School Year 12 student Grace Molloy said.
The school, one of the only places with electricity, opened its doors to students after hours. Teachers came in on their days off, and helped students study. Other students were forced to work at home by candlelight.
Many locals fear the situation is deteriorating. For families, simple tasks such as cooking dinner, washing clothes and putting kids to sleep has been nearly impossible.
The Pratt family went 32 hours without power at one point during the crisis. Life in their home with three kids aged under 5 pushed Sarah and Nick close to breaking point.
“You don’t realise how much you rely on electricity just for day-to-day life,” Ms Pratt said. “It was 38C in our children’s bedroom, I had to put them to sleep with a cold cloth on their head to try and keep the temperature down.
“I know that if this happened in Sydney, it wouldn’t have gone on this long. I feel like it’s happened to us because we’re so isolated.”
Businesses in Broken Hill are equally desperate.
Cafe owner Abigail Hughes has closed her doors, throwing out thousands of dollars worth of produce after it spoiled.
Ms Hughes says she has lost at least $30,000 in produce and lost income, and described Mr Minns’ promise of $200 for residents and $400 for businesses as “laughable.”
“Four hundred dollars really doesn’t cut it. It wouldn’t even restock my family of five’s fridge these days with the cost of groceries,” she said.
“It’s a beautiful thought but I hope potentially the next round is something a bit more substantial.”
School canteen manager Donna Lee Singleton said if the outage had happened in the city, the army would have been called in five days ago.
She begins to cry when she talks about the thousands of dollars of frozen food she will have to throw away.
“I know that for some of these kids, it’s the only meal they get a day,” she said.
It is a similar situation in the town’s mines. With no power to run one of Broken Hill’s main industries, more than 500 miners have been stood down indefinitely.
Those who are employed full-time have been instructed to take their annual leave.
“We are haemorrhaging internally,” said Russell Miller, a truck driver for Broken Hill’s Perilya lead and zinc mine.
“No one signs up for this. Not in a first-world country.
“I lived in Africa for 17 years and had more reliable electricity than this,” he said.
“The uncertainty is killing me,” he said.
The CP People’s Chemist in town was forced to throw out $20,000 worth of medication after someone stole the generator keeping the medication fridges running.
Nurses and doctors from Broken Hill Base Hospital, speaking on the condition of anonymity, revealed they have shut down vital CT machines, labs and operating theatres to conserve what little power they do have.
“It’s vital, it’s a main diagnostic tool especially for people having strokes,” a nurse said.
While the hospital has its own generator, sources have told The Saturday Telegraph the supply is not strong enough to keep the facility at full capacity.
“Some areas were in the dark. We took our own torches to work,” a nurse said.
“We are stuck on the wrong side of the Blue Mountains. Does anyone know? Does anyone care?”
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