Thousands still in darkness after wild storms
Tens of thousands of Victorians remain without power as the clean up from devastating storms and bushfires continues.
More than 80,000 homes and businesses across the state have been left in the dark as repair crews work to fix powerlines damaged by severe winds and storms that swept across the state on Tuesday.
As of 9am on Thursday, more than 75,000 AusNet customers in outer east and outer northern Melbourne and eastern and north-eastern Victoria remain without power.
A further 199 Powercor Australia customers located in the outer western suburbs of Melbourne, as well as central and western Victoria were in the dark overnight, while more 4,670 United Energy customers in Melbourne’s south east and the Mornington Peninsula are still without power.
More than 180 Jemena customers in Melbourne’s northwest and one property powered by CitiPower remain affected by the power outages.
The Victorian Premier promised residents and business owners that support is on the way, despite warnings it could be up to a week for some people to get power back.
“There will be support there for those families and the broader community as well as we move into that recovery phase,” Allan said.
“But we’re not at that recovery phase yet.”
Up to 530,000 homes lost power when the severe weather struck on Tuesday, with the AGL Energy’s Loy Yang A coal plant going offline shortly after 2pm on the same day.
All four units of the power station were offline on Tuesday, but two units have since returned to service.
Power transmission lines near Geelong were also destroyed by the “catastrophic” winds, contributing to the major blackout.
As of 8:15 on Thursday morning SES Victoria has received 4,250 requests for the assistance since the storms and severe weather started at midday on Tuesday.
More than 3,400 of the calls for help received were for trees down over roads and properties, while another 623 calls were in relation to building damage.
Nearly 54 calls were requests for assistance from other agencies including Victoria Police.
The busiest units since the onset of the storms include Monash, in Greater Melbourne, with 817 residents calling the SES for assistance, Greater Dandenong with 283 calls and Emerald, 44km east of Melbourne, with 301 calls for help.
It comes as a severe weather warning remains in place for Emerald and Cockatoo communities as emergency services work to remove fallen trees from roads and homes across the region.
The severe weather claimed the life of a 50-year-old dairy farmer after storms swept through South Gippsland.
The man was believed to be struck by a shed roof that became detached when strong winds hit Mirboo North.
