Interstate crews arrive to help restore power as TasNetworks and Telstra under fire from storm affected public

Interstate crews have arrived to help restore power to more than 86000 customers as TasNetworks and Telstra for a lack of preparation ahead of the forecast wild weather.

Image: TasNetworks

UPDATE: Interstate contractors have been called in to help electricity supplies across the state – with some customers without power for nearly a week.

Twenty-two employees from NSW arrived on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry this morning to add to the dozens of TasNetworks crews already working to restore power to more than 8600 customers from 620 active jobs – mostly in the North and North West.

TasNetworks Acting Operations Executive Tim Gowland said while days to weeks of work remain, the interstate support crews would help TasNetworks’ existing workforce addressthe outages.

“We feel deeply for Tasmanians who’ve already gone several days and nights without power in their homes, businesses and farms,” Mr Gowland said.

“It’s somewhat customary, but always deeply appreciated, that Australians band together in times of need. TasNetworks crews have previously travelled interstate to lend support, including in the wake of devastating bushfires.

“These 22 New South Wales crew members have arrived … this morning, fully equipped. They’re bringing four Elevated Work Platform vehicles and 12 four-wheel-drive utilities. They’ll receive a safety induction and specific knowledge before working on our network under local direction. We greatly appreciate their support.

“Our TasNetworks team members have been working long, hard hours, in severe conditions, to restore Tasmanians’ power, and they’ve been outstanding in their commitment and professionalism. Overall, they’ve restored power to about 150,000 customers so far. The interstate help will give us more crews in the field, as well as the opportunity to rest and rotate people most effectively.

“We still have several days of hard work ahead. We’ll succeed more quickly with extra field crews available,” he said.

The impact of current storm damage is unprecedented in recent memory. While TasNetworks has confronted other storms affecting tens of thousands of customers in recent years, they’ve usually involved a few dozen separate outages, compared to more than 200 for much of the current event.

See the latest on outages here

EARLIER: Over the last year or so, Mount Gnomon Farm at Penguin has lost power three times.

“Trees from one of the properties that are overhanging powerlines have caused power outages,” farm owner Guy Robertson said.

“It should happen because, obviously, it keeps on happening in the same area.”

Guy Robertson of Mount Gnomon Farm samples a cider in his blossoming apple orchard at Penguin. PICTURE CHRIS KIDD

A TasNetworks spokesperson said scheduled and unplanned outages had impacted Mount Gnomon Farm over the last 12 months.

“We do our best to notify our customers of planned outages, and while we do best to protect power supply, there are sometimes impacts to our infrastructure beyond our control, such as what we have witnessed with the recent storms.

“We strongly encourage our customers to contact us about any possible vegetation impacts on our networks as we all have a part to play in protecting each other and our environment.”

Mr Robertson was one of the tens of thousands of people around the state impacted by the recent wild weather that lashed the state.

The power at his property flickered on and off for four days, and on Father’s Day, the only road access to the farm was blocked for 24 hours.

He believed more preparation work needed to be done in the lead-up to predicted storm events.

“It seems like TasNetworks doesn’t have the resources anymore to do pre-emptive tree clearing over power lines,” Mr Robertson said.

“You can’t do much about the weather; extreme weather events with climate change are going to become more common.

“But unless there’s actually more maintenance along our highways and roads, we’re going to be in this situation again.”

TasNetworks declared “an incident” on August 25, which the company said “was as soon as we were made aware and subsequently prepared for the storm event”.

Before the storms, a number of TasNetworks employees were in the midst of industrial action.

“This decision was made to enable the protection of the network and the safety of life support customers as well as ensuring Tasmanians affected by outages could have power reinstated as soon as possible.”

Telstra area manager Michael Patterson in front of the upgraded transmission tower on King Island

The reliability of the state’s mobile phone network has also been questioned in the aftermath of the flooding and storms.

“It’s very frustrating that whenever we have an emergency like this, the mobile phone services goes down,” Erriba resident Becky Coates said.

“You can’t actually get any information, and you can’t get in contact with anyone.”

Telstra Regional General Manager Michael Patterson said its technicians had been making good progress in restoring services following the widespread power outages caused by the severe weather.

“We’ve restored a significant number of mobile sites, with more than 90 per cent of our affected mobile base stations now back online,” Mr Patterson said.

“Our sites rely on mains power to operate, but they all have backup energy supplies, which have helped extend coverage for a number of hours on many sites.

“Our network sites use a lot of power. One mobile base station uses the same amount of power as 10 homes.

“Due to the ongoing power outages, some of our sites progressively went flat.”