A week after a storm plunged the rural NSW town of Broken Hill into darkness, the town is still dealing with rolling blackouts, raising questions about how the grid could fail so significantly.
A severe storm destroyed seven Transgrid transmission towers on October 17, plunging 12,000 residents into darkness in the state’s far west.
The impacted towns include Broken Hill, Tibooburra, Wilcannia, Menindee, White Cliffs and other surrounding communities.
Residents have been left anxious that they could lose power at any moment, local musician Michael Boland told 9News.
“There’s always anxiety that at any time you’re about to lose power,” Boland said.
“People are also frightened for their loved ones, especially the elderly … that rely on power for medical services such as CPAP machines and life support machines.”
Residents have been left to fend for themselves, with locals rushing to buy generators and diesel to run them.
Generators have also been brought in to run hospitals and schools, but businesses say they are bleeding money due to the outage.
Local mines have been cut off, with more than 500 workers forced onto unpaid or annual leave as it’s not safe to work without power.
Owner of Broken Hill restaurant Giovanni’s, Abigal Hughes, says the business has lost $30,000 due to the power outage.
David Trinder from the Astra Hotel says they’ve lost $20,000 since the power went out.
Premier Chris Minns landed in town today, offering $200 in compensation for individuals and $400 for businesses, but the locals say it’s not enough.
”$400 for businesses… That will hardly cover the cost of my food at home … $200 is meat for a week,” Hughes said.
Transgrid crews have started cleaning up what’s left of the transmission towers, but they aren’t expected to start fixing them until at least another fortnight.
Transgrid’s contract says it’s meant to have two backup generators in case of an emergency like this one, but one of them has been out of action until November last year.
