55,000 Victorians still without power, more than 48 hours after storm
Some 55,000 Victorian households remain disconnected from the state’s electricity grid more than two days after wild weather downed transmission towers and power lines.
Some 55,000 Victorian households remain disconnected from the state’s electricity grid more than two days after wild weather downed transmission towers and power lines, tripping the Loy Yang A coal-fired station and causing blackouts for 530,000 customers.
The power station – which provides 20 per cent of Victoria’s power – was back up and running on Thursday morning, as Premier Jacinta Allan toured the Grampians region in the state’s west, where at least 25 houses were destroyed by fire on Tuesday.
At 4pm on Thursday, 55,668 Victorian households remained without power, with the state government predicting 50,000 of those would be reconnected by 6pm on Saturday.
A further 3000 were being assessed and considered likely to be reconnected early next week.
It was not clear how many of those facing outages were power-dependent customers who need electricity for life support or other medical purposes, with 1911 power-dependent customers still disconnected as of 10.30am on Thursday.
The government has made a one-off payment of $90 available to Victorians who have experienced outages lasting at least 12 hours.
Mobile phone coverage also remained an issue, with 22 communities in the state’s northeast and Gippsland – including Lakes Entrance, Buffalo River, Metung, Trafalgar, Kilcunda and Howqua Inlet – unable to even access Tripe-0 as of Thursday afternoon.
Ms Allan surveyed the fire damage in the Grampians, where 24 homes, three businesses and 23 outbuildings were lost in Pomonal, and another home was lost in Dadswells Bridge.
“There is an expectation that number could go up a little bit more as the assessments are finalised,” the Premier said.
“That’s tough. That’s really tough for those families, and it also reverberates across the broader community.”
The vast majority of homes still without power were in the southeastern and outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Gippsland and northeastern Victoria, on the AusNet network.
AusNet spokesman Steven Neave apologised to customers experiencing prolonged outages, saying the network had suffered “widespread devastation” in Tuesday’s storms.
“The power network is very heavily vegetated. Events like this mean there’s a lot of vegetation that needs to be cleared, roads need to be cleared to get safe access. So really, that takes some time to get through, and we’re working our way through as quickly and methodically as we can, but it’s pretty heavy going,” Mr Neave said.
“We’ve got about 500 crews on the ground. They realise how important it is to get power back on to those communities, so we’ve got a full contingent.”
More Coverage
Jewish leaders: put Greens last on ballot
Two of the nation’s leading Jewish groups have sought public commitments from Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton for the major parties to preference each other over the Greens at the next election.
Diplomat’s partner in post-rugby slur at cops
Footage has emerged of an Australian diplomat’s partner apparently yelling a homophobic slur at police during his arrest after the Bledisloe Cup rugby match in New Zealand last month.