Utilities in Victoria will face major challenges with rehabilitation as conditions ease and the mop up begins after multiple bushfires ripped through communities.
One person died and more than seven hundred buildings were destroyed on a catastrophic day of fire conditions on January 9, when major fires were fought at Longwood in the Strathbogies, Walwa, near the NSW border, Harcourt, near Castlemaine and Natimuk in Victoria’s west.
There were multiple other fires stretching CFA crews to their limit while consecutive days of 40C temperatures and high winds also challenged power infrastructure and telecommunication connections.
At its peak on Friday there were reports of up to 30,000 homes without power, with crews across the state working to restore downed powerlines.
However, many areas remained inaccessible to crews with fires still burning and conditions too dangerous to enter the fireground.
Late on Tuesday, AusNet said it still had 2,100 customers dealing with power outages and recorded 27 outages across its service area covering Victorias east.
AusNet said it still didn’t have access to all parts of our network, making recovery efforts very difficult.
“We will continue to work with emergency agencies to gain safe access to areas where the fire has passed through so that we can assess damage to power infrastructure and repair or rebuild the network. The rebuild may still take some time to complete.”
On Monday, it had 3,400 bushfire-affected homes, farms and businesses in the AusNet network without power.
AusNet has set up a dedicated Bushfire Support Line (1300 561 171) for affected customers and are investigating potential for mobile generators to be situated in some of the worst impacted communities where we might not be able to restore mains power for some time.
It was working to restore power to the major centre Corryong near the Walwa fires on Monday.
AusNet’s Emergency Management Mobile Assistance Vehicles (EMMAs) will also mobilise provide information and support, help people charge their devices and to access the internet.
Powercor is meanwhile assessing the damage to its network in the west of the state, including around Skipton to see what can be restored.
In a release Powercor said more than 200 field workers are on the ground today across fire-affected areas in Harcourt, Natimuk, Cobram and Skipton/Streatham as power restoration efforts continue.
Crews are focusing on rebuilding large parts of the power network destroyed by bushfires and restoring power to about 1,280 customers, with most in the Ravenswood and Harcourt region.
Since Friday, Powercor teams have replaced more than 150 poles and rebuilt large parts of the electricity network damaged by fire.
More than 100 poles will be replaced over the next few days, and teams are continuing to access fire-affected areas to assess other damage.
Powercor said it expected to have customers back on by the end of Wednesday.
“However, these estimated restoration times may change based on any further assessments by our team and we will keep customers updated via our outage map, SMS, contact centre and other channels.”
Water undrinkable
At he same time Coliban Water which supplies central Victoria issued a “do not drink notice for the Harcourt supply system .
In a statement Coliban Water said the fires had impacted its ability to safely access a burst water main that may have contaminated the water supply network. We are asking all residents to not drink tap water until further notice.
The Harcourt supply system also supplies areas south of Harcourt, with other areas also impacted by the Do Not Drink Advisory.
A drinking water trailer was made available at Rodilesa Nursery Harcourt, on the corner of Blackjack Road and Midland Highway to fill drink bottles or other suitable containers for affected customers.
