By Shelby Brooks
Over three thousand Gembrook, Cockatoo and Pakenham residents are facing an uncertain night with no answer as to when power supply will be switched back on following wild weather overnight.
1660 people in Cockatoo, 1101 in Gembrook, 1031 in Pakenham, 434 in Pakenham Upper and 99 in Nar Nar Goon North still have no power due to the severe weather event during the evening of Wednesday 9 June.
An AusNet spokesperson said it had been a rough 24 hours for the power network.
“It’s the worst storm in terms of damage to the power network in living memory,” they said.
“Almost a third of our network was impacted. Over 200,000 homes and businesses at one point, that’s down to 160,000 now.”
They were unable to say when powerlines would be fixed.
“At this point in time we are still trying to ascertain the damage, we can’t give an estimate of when the power will be back on. We do apologise for that,” the spokesperson said.
“We’re still trying to work out how bad the damage but we will be providing information on our Facebook page and our outage tracker.”
According to the Department of Health, if a power outage impacts your health or safety, or the health or safety of someone you live with, you can travel to accommodation like a hotel or a friend or family member’s house during Covid-19 restrictions.
If you require power for life support or a ventilator you can travel to a friend or family member’s house who has power.
Regardless of your location, continue to follow COVIDSafe principles, such as wearing a face mask, washing hands, coughing into a tissue or your elbow and maintaining appropriate physical distancing.
