By Ray Sparvell
Some 6000 households remain without electricity as Western Power works to restore power after WA was lashed by destructive winds and heavy rain on Saturday.
The utility provider is continuing to restore power to homes throughout the metropolitan and regional areas on Sunday after as many as 60,000 were left without electricity on Saturday.
By 6pm on Saturday the utility provider had managed to reconnect 30,000 users and by noon Sunday the number of homes without power had been reduced to about 6000.
Western Power spokesman Gair Landsborough said crews had reconnected half the affected homes across the network in just three hours on Saturday.
Western Power crews restored power to 32,000 homes on Thursday.Credit: Western Power
"Crews will continue to work hard to reconnect the remaining customers," he said.
Chief executive Guy Chalkley said it had been the provider's first big test of the winter storm season.
"I want to thank our crews and employees for restoring power for our customers as safely and as quickly as possible," he said.
"Some customers continue to be without power, but we are working hard to find the faults, repair damage and restore electricity supplies as soon as we can."
A fallen tree blocked East Parade in Perth on Saturday.Credit: Nine News
The storms created 750 hazard report across the metropolitan electricity network while more than 43,000 calls were made to Western Power's Perth-based contact centre.
The Department of Fire and Emergency Services cancelled severe weather warnings on Sunday while the Bureau of Meteorology forecast a cloudy day with rain of up to five millimetres likely in the afternoon and evening.
Perth received a dump of some 45 millimetres of rain over 48 hours, something a BoM spokesman said was "not unusual" for mid-May.
"We got around 75 millimetres over a similar period last year," he said.
Bickley received the highest rainfall in the metropolitan area with 57.6 millimetres while Witchcliffe in the South-West topped the state with 64.6 millimetres.
Strong winds brought down trees and debris had flown into the overhead electricity network causing a high number of fallen powerlines and damaged power poles, particularly in the Perth metropolitan area.
Mr Landsborough said emergency crews had been busy repairing fallen powerlines and responding to emergency calls since the damaging winds started about 6.30am on Saturday.
"A fallen powerline creates a significant risk to the community and clearing serious safety hazards has been our number one priority," Mr Landsborough said.
"We are prioritising our work with a safety focus which means that there will be delays in restoring power to some customers especially with the high number of incidents."
Mr Landsborough said more than 17,000, had been made to Western Power's Perth-based emergency call centre.
"Our crews are working in some difficult and trying conditions, but we will continue to work to restore power for our customers when safe to do so," he said.
"We ask customers to continue reporting fallen powerlines and other hazards on the electricity network to 13 13 51."
For the latest information on outages, customers can download the Western Power App from their smartphone store or visit Western Power's website.
SES volunteers received some 540 calls to incidents in Perth between late Friday afternoon to Saturday evening.
A spokeswoman said most of the calls were for water leakage into homes caused by issues like back-up gutters.
"We deployed 17 units and they were also kept busy clearing streets of debris and fallen branches," she said.
"A house lost its roof in Jurien Bay and two others there received significant damage."
An SES team was sent to an address in North Fremantle following reports that the tin roof of a commercial property had been blown off in the high winds.
By Sunday morning, the SES was in mop-up mode along with employees from local councils.
At the height of the storm several roads were closed because of flooding, including Riverside Drive in both directions from Victoria Avenue to Barrack Street and Great Eastern Highway bypass in both directions at Abernethy Road, Hazelmere.
Flooding also closed Cedric Street in both directions at Mitchell Freeway in Stirling, Kwinana Freeway northbound from Canning Highway to the Narrows Bridge - left lane closed, Great Eastern Highway westbound near Wellard Road, Mahogany Creek and Roe Highway southbound off ramp to Berkshire Road, Kalamunda.
Police say several vessels broke their moorings in the storm. One yacht which broke its mooring near the Applecross foreshore drifted along the river and became wedged under the Canning Bridge.