Stefan Bradley
IF you hadn’t seen or felt the wild weather, you most likely heard it throughout the night.
AusNet’s regularly updated Outage Tracker on Monday morning indicated “unplanned outages” across most of Wellington Shire, especially across the Coastal and Central wards.
The wind caused significant power outages on Sunday night and Monday morning, with about 112,000 properties without power.
The impacts are across the network, but the towns of Moe and Warragul were yesterday without power. Some parts of Wellington, including in Sale, experienced black-outs yesterday but had power restored.
Many trees are down, including along the 90 Mile Beach. A number of schools and businesses across the shire were closed at some point yesterday.
Gippsland has also been affected by flooding.
Parts of Manns Beach in the south of the shire was covered by more than half a metre of water last week as wild winds caused high tides. About 12 houses were inundated.
AusNet said it had crews in the field currently assessing the damage.
“The weather is still affecting the network and it is very hazardous, so this may take a little longer than usual,” the company said in a media release on Monday morning.
“We will update estimated restoration times on our Outage Tracker once we’ve made damage assessments. In terms of the power coming back on, some of these may take longer than 24 hours, particularly in more remote areas.
“We urge people to keep away from any fallen or damaged powerlines and assume any wires are live.”
On Monday morning, Gippsland State Emergency Service said “the region currently sits at 219 requests for assistance, majority of these relate to trees down and building damage”.
On Sunday afternoon, winds of around 100 kilometres per hour hit coastal areas and Gippsland, according to AusNet.
“The current strong wind conditions impacting customers on our electricity network is the longest sustained weather event the network has faced in more than 10 years,” AusNet executive general manager and distribution, Andrew Linnie said on Sunday.
“Since the start of the wild weather last Sunday (August 21), the past week has seen around 120,000 customer outages with some customers impacted multiple times. We’ve been well-resourced to address faults and have been keeping customers informed,” he said.
AusNet said it had generators temporarily stationed in Mirboo North ready to be connected to provide backup power to town centres if the storm impacts the network.
The Department of Transport announced V/Line trains were not operating between Southern Cross and Bairnsdale stations throughout yesterday. However, a coach service was operating between Bairnsdale and East Pakenham, where passengers could then switch to Metro trains. Delays of up to 15 minutes were expected on the Pakenham Metro line.
The SES has urged Victorians to take heed of community warnings via the VicEmergency app and/or the website and check VicTraffic for road closures.
Wellington Shire Council confirmed Monday bin collections were cancelled and would resume today. The most up-to-date information will be available on council’s Facebook page.
Council also said its parks crews were out cleaning up fallen trees and keeping roads clear for critical services.
People who must travel have been urged to be careful and report any emergencies via 000 or to SES on 132 500.
