Hundreds of thousands still without power after wild weather hits Victoria

Hundreds of thousands of Victorians remain without electricity, including entire communities on Phillip Island and its surrounds after storms smashed the state’s power network on Tuesday.

Power to hundreds of traffic lights and some train lines has still not been restored, threatening to cause chaos during Wednesday morning’s commute. And overnight, Ambulance Victoria told those unable to call triple-zero to instead drive to their nearest hospital emergency department.

Bass Coast deputy mayor Rochelle Halstead told ABC radio that her daughter, who lives on Phillip Island, has reported “no power, there’s no fuel stations”.

“There’s limited phone service,” Halstead said. “We don’t have any power in [nearby] San Remo. I understand right across the Bass Coast there is no power at the moment.”

She added that the outages would impact eateries and businesses gearing up for Valentine’s Day.

“I was talking to a few hospitality businesses. They’re all preparing for Valentine’s Day, which is today, so their fridges will be full of oysters and those sorts of things. It’s going to be affecting … businesses right across the whole of the shire.”

Australian Energy Market Operator chief executive Daniel Westerman said more than half a million Victorians were without electricity on Tuesday, but half of those have since had their power restored. He said it was too soon to say when the lights would be back on in all homes and businesses.

“I can say that emergency crews are working day and night, tirelessly, to restore that power,” Westerman said. “I don’t think it will be all finished today. Some of those may take several days to fully restore.”

About 6.30am on Wednesday, Powercor reported 25,780 customers in Victoria’s west and inner Melbourne were offline (down from 76,125 at 8pm on Tuesday). United Energy, the distributor in south-east Melbourne, reported 24,334 customers without power (down from 134,579 at 8pm). Jemena, the distributor in north-west Melbourne, reported only 70 customers remain affected (down from 189 at 8pm).

The outage tracker of AusNet, which distributes power in Victoria’s east, has crashed due to “overwhelming demand”. A rough calculation of its replacement outage list shows at least 50,000 customers are still without electricity (262,601 had no power at 8pm).

The aftermath of Tuesday night’s storm in Clayton, in Melbourne’s south-east. Credit: Wayne Taylor

A VicRoads spokeswoman said approximately 550 traffic lights are affected “in some way” across the state. Residents in suburbs like Wantirna, in Melbourne’s east, have reported that intersections in their area were hit particularly hard by the outages. In nearby Knoxfield, residents reported spending the night without streetlights.

Several schools and early childhood learning centres shut their doors on Wednesday due to the wild weather. These include three kindergartens in Beaconsfield, in Melbourne’s south-east, and a school in Clayton.

Metro Trains said buses are replacing trains between Belgrave and Upper Ferntree Gully due to an overhead power supply issue near Upwey. Replacement buses will continue express through to/from Ringwood.

Most other metropolitan train lines have resumed regular service after power outages caused chaos during the evening commute on Tuesday, causing replacement bus services to be overwhelmed at stations such as Caulfield.

Downed trees and a damaged power pole in Clayton.Credit: Wayne Taylor

The state government has warned it could take weeks to fully restore the network as Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio described it as “one of the largest outage events in the state’s history”.

Premier Jacinta Allan, Emergency Services Minister Jaclyn Symes and D’Ambrosio are due to address the media from the State Control Centre from 11am on Wednesday.

The Australian Energy Market Operator declared a “significant power system event” on Tuesday afternoon after storms damaged power lines around Melbourne and all four generators at Loy Yang A power station went offline. Almost 100,000 properties also had power intentionally switched off at one point to protect the grid.

Extreme winds led to the “physical collapse” of six transmission towers in Anakie, near Geelong, the Victorian Department of Energy, Climate and Climate Action (DEECA) said late on Tuesday.

With Kieran Rooney and Alex Crowe

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