Thousands of homes still without power in Victoria after wild storms swept through the state
Aerial view of Melbourne. Sketched by the Pan Pacific Agency.
MELBOURNE, Aug 31, 2020, 9News. Thousands of homes in Victoria are facing their fourth day without power after wild storms ravaged the state last week, killing three people, 9News reported.
Power company AusNet says nearly 4000 households are currently without power as of 1.30pm today due to unplanned outages.
The power outages were mainly confined to Melbourne’s east and outer-east, including the metropolitan suburbs of Ringwood, Croydon, Bayswater and Ferntree Gully.
While about 2000 households around the Dandenong Ranges have also been severely impacted, including Belgrave, Tecoma, Emerald, Mount Dandenong, Montrose and Gembrook; as well as suburbs near Healesville.
Teacher Renee Williams lost power at her Emerald house during Thursday’s fatal storm.
She has been in the dark ever since.
“We had nothing other than candles and we burnt all the candles out on the first couple of days,” she told 9News.
“It’s just not knowing – whether I’m going to be able to work – what capacity, I’m a teacher so I work from home, I have to use my laptop.”
Strong wind gusts also triggered more power outages yesterday, with about 2200 households losing power.
The Bureau of Meteorology confirmed the heaviest gust of 122km/h was recorded at Wilsons Promontory.
In metropolitan Melbourne, St Kilda recorded an 85km/h gust and winds grew to 70km/h in Frankston.
Three people, including a four-year-old boy, lost their lives in the freak storm which caused chaos on Thursday night, with a massive clean-up involving about 3000 calls of assistance from SES crews.
The power outages on Thursday also caused the Silvan Dam – one of the main water suppliers for Melbourne’s eastern and northern suburbs – to lose power, potentially contaminating household water.
The warning urging Melburnians across around 100 suburbs to refrain from drinking tap water has now been revoked.
Light south-westerly winds of up to 25km/h are expected to sweep metropolitan Melbourne this afternoon, with a top of 13 degrees forecast.
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