Wild weather wreaked havoc last week.
A wild Tuesday night storm saw trees felled, powerlines destroyed, roofs removed and a total power and internet outage across large parts of the vast East Gippsland region.
Debris and damage was widespread, the power outage causing traffic chaos with Bairnsdale’s traffic lights not working and only one petrol station open for commuters to fill up their vehicles.
Wind gusts reaching 113km/h were recorded at just after 6pm last Tuesday at Bairnsdale’s airport weather station. Power was restored in the Bairnsdale CBD around 9.30am last Wednesday, however other parts of the town and region weren’t so fortunate.
Some supermarkets, cafes and restaurants were forced to get rid of thousands of dollars worth of stock, while internet issues meant eftpos was unavailable at numerous businesses and ATM machines were not in working order.
The East Gippsland Historical Society is in need of a new roof on the north side of its building on MacArthur Street, while in the same precinct numerous fallen trees downed the Bairnsdale City Oval fence.
Extensive damage to the electricity network across the state left 500,000 Victorians without power at its peak, 90 per cent of those customers were reconnected within 48 hours. However some areas, including Metung, still had not had power restored.
IMPROVING SERVICES
Local MP, Tim Bull, said improved communications and information sharing from essential service providers will be sought in the wake of the outages.
Many residents and businesses were unsure of exactly when they would have power and internet restored.
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Mr Bull said there will be times, no matter what preparations are put in place, Mother Nature impacts on communities, but we need some baseline standards adopted by companies like AusNet and Telstra to communicate better to communities and have them better prepared.
“AusNet unfortunately provided bits and pieces of information that were in direct conflict and, in some cases, simply wrong.
Their communications staff are often remotely based and have no local knowledge,” he said.
“It is clear they have no capacity to deal with these situations anywhere near as well as they should be doing and there are numerous examples to support this view.
“My initial contact outlined that, fully understanding the complexities and in many cases timeframes could not be provided as assessments were still being done, to provide me with information I could share with the community that had been confirmed. However, there was conflicting and incorrect information provided regularly.
“One example is my office was provided with written (email) information saying Metung would be back online by 6pm on 15/2 (Thursday). I relayed this widely as I’d had two families with loved ones over 90 that would leave them in Metung if the power was coming back on, but would drive from Melbourne to pick them up if it was to be longer term. “We also had people on CPAP machines needing power.
“However, at around 2pm Thursday (four hours before the power was to come back on) the AusNet outage tracker website changed to say power in Metung would not be restored until 19/2 (Monday). I enquired and was told it would be by 6pm Friday – that’s three timelines for the same town. On questioning, no one knew where the Monday timeframe came from on the website,” Mr Bull said.
In addition, the power was out at Cann River, Genoa and Mallacoota, but these towns never at any stage appeared on the website outage tracker.
Lake Tyers Beach is another that was never listed.
“Apparently Lake Tyers had restricted supply and that is why it was never listed, but businesses could not open, and they needed information and timelines as to when full power would be restored. There should have been provision for this information to be made available rather than be sitting on the phone on hold for three hours, before giving up,” Mr Bull said.
“Throughout the outage, Paynesville and Eagle Point were listed as offline for several days on the outage tracker, but power was never lost there at any stage. The reason this was an issue is people were looking at this website and cancelling their holiday bookings online because they thought there was no power.”
Mr Bull said although there are complexities and in some cases timeframes are not known, AusNet simply cannot give out information that is not accurate; list towns as being offline when power was never lost there; leave towns off lists altogether when the power is out in these communities as they feel forgotten and disenfranchised.
“Nor can it say it is too hard to give accurate information so we will say less, the community demands information that is accurate,” he said.
“Then we have Telstra, which I met with post fires and sought significant improvements in relation to back-up power, but it seems to have got worse in the four years since.
“We need back-up generators, but we seem to have only back-up batteries for as little as two hours. Telstra needs to provide a network that can function for extended periods when the power goes out.
“For a company that recorded a $2.1 billion profit last year, it should be doing better in rural communities. They also struggled to provide information to the level required as to when services would be restored.”
Mr Bull said he was pleased AusNet had agreed to meet this week to discuss improvements, and he would seek a meeting with Telstra to do the same.
“One of my suggestions will be that when such instances occur, a person in each area with a good local geographical knowledge, be put in place to liaise with local government, state and federal MP’s, business and tourism association reps, chambers of commerce, etc with accurate information.
“I acknowledge in the early days there are few guarantees that can be made and timelines given while assessments are done, but the community needs to be kept informed much better than it was with as much accurate detail as possible, so plans can be made for individuals and businesses.”
