By Mikayla van Loon
Patches of the Yarra Ranges have been left in darkness with thousands of homes and businesses still without power after storms lashed the outer east on Tuesday afternoon.
Called “one of the largest outage events in the state’s history” by energy minister Lily D’Ambrosio, at the peak of the outage 530,000 customers were affected across the state.
The eastern suburbs provider, Ausnet, saw more than 260,000 customers impacted on Tuesday 13 February, with that number dropping to just over 180,000 as of 11.30am on Wednesday.
“Our field crews have been working overnight to assess the damage to our network caused by the severe weather that moved across most of Victoria yesterday,” Ausnet posted to social media.
“We have over 320 resources across fault response and vegetation management responding to more than 400 different faults today, including fallen and damaged powerlines and trees.
“Due to the large volumes and complexity of the damage, restoration times will be longer than usual, and some may be without power for multiple days.”
The service provider issued an apology on Wednesday at 1.30pm to those affected, stating that “40 per cent of our customers were affected by the incident”.
The Emerald SES unit was one of the busiest in the state overnight, receiving over 200 calls for assistance adding to the state total of over 3500 in the 24 hours to 11am on Wednesday.
Lilydale SES unit controller Shaun Caulfield said the suburban patch was not hit too badly with only 20 jobs for trees and powerlines down but crews have been lending assistance across the region.
“A crew headed to a rescue of a person trapped in a house after a tree fell in Emerald because the SES unit from there was off doing other jobs but the crew was cancelled on the way, as the person was able to make their way out to safety,” Mr Caulfield said.
“We helped out Healesville who had a flurry of jobs, maybe 30 to 35 in a short period of time.
“We do come together as SES. We have a number of units assisting Knox, Emerald and a crew assisting Monash today (14 Feb) because they still have in excess of 300 outstanding tasks to clear.”
Mr Caulfield said he expects the clean up to take a couple of days, with crews out clearing roads of trees and debris.
“People who were affected by the 2021 storm might be nervous or fearful that it will be as bad as that but it’s not sounding like it will go on for anywhere near as long as the 2021 storm.”
Trains have also been affected, with buses replacing services from Mooroolbark and Belgrave to Blackburn with an equipment fault near Ringwood and power outages in Upwey. The train line from Lilydale to Mooroolbark is still operating.
“We ask passengers to check station platform displays, listen for announcements, and allow an extra 45 minutes for their journey,” the Department of Transport said.
Telecommunications across the east were also down as a result of the high winds, rain and lightning.
Telstra’s 4G, 5G and in some places 3G mobile network has been disrupted, with Cockatoo to Mount Evelyn impacted in the Hills and Coldstream, Woori Yallock and Healesville losing service in the Valley.
“We are currently working to restore services following the storms. Power outages across the state are impacting hundreds of thousands of properties, including many of our network sites (like mobile base stations).
“We’re using generators to keep as many sites online as possible while we wait for the power to come back on.
“At this stage, we’re seeing disruptions across 223 mobile sites around the state and almost 5000 landlines are disrupted.
“We have already restored 263 mobile sites, and techs will continue this work in the coming days.”
Optus services are also down from Healesville to Warburton, Mount Evelyn to Monbulk and Emerald.
Dozens of schools or early learning centres across Victoria closed on Wednesday morning because of power outages.
“Schools are making every effort to provide information to families as quickly as they can and where possible are providing supervision for students where they need it,” an education department spokesman said.
Birmingham Primary School in Mount Evelyn posted to social media that “the grounds are a bit of a mess and some of our services will be compromised…but our buildings are otherwise untouched and we will be ready to see the children at school in time for 9am if it suits individual family circumstances”.
Mooroolbark East Primary School also lost power but the school opened and staff were onsite.
In Belgrave, Mater Christi College had to close on Wednesday having “also sustained damage to property” and being without power.
As people await the return of power and services, offers of food storage, phone charging, baby bottle warming and places of retreat have started being shared across social media and community noticeboards.
