00:00Endeavour covers Western Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Southern Highlands and the South
00:06Coast of New South Wales. Unfortunately we've been hit very hard with wind storms over the
00:12last 24 hours. At its peak there was about 30,000 customers impacted. We've got crews
00:18working right across our network from right down in Ulladulla to up in Lithgow to restore
00:23supply for our customers.
00:25How long has the power been out in some places?
00:29So it started about four o'clock yesterday afternoon. Most of those customers were impacted
00:34overnight. We saw significant winds of up to 125 kilometres an hour over our network.
00:41Most of that damage is on the South Coast, so around Kiama right down to Ulladulla but also
00:46some damage in the Southern Highlands. We've managed to restore almost two thirds of those
00:50customers already today and we've got crews working hard to get everybody else back on
00:55as quickly as we can.
00:56And the power has gone out because trees have come down on power lines, is that right?
01:02Yeah, primarily very large trees. As I think everyone is aware there's been a lot of rain,
01:07over 150 mils in areas like Nowra. So a lot of rain that makes the ground a lot softer and
01:14then high winds of over 100 kilometres an hour has unfortunately meant lots of trees have come
01:19down impacting power lines. We do ask customers to make sure they stay away from any fallen power lines.
01:25We will get staff there to make safe. But if somebody sees fallen power lines, sees damage
01:31to the network, please contact us on 131003 and let us know that that's happened and we'll get staff
01:37out there as soon as we can.
01:39How much longer before everybody is back on?
01:44We hope to get over 80% of those customers that are currently affected back on tonight. There will be some customers,
01:50unfortunately, that will be without power tonight. We will get all of them back on tomorrow. However, the wind is
01:56still there and we are seeing customers throughout the course of today still being impacted. We're seeing things like flooding warnings down in Sussex Inlet that is having an impact on us being able to get in to be able to make repairs. But we will get as many as we can back on today, the rest tomorrow. But if we do have further winds this afternoon and over tonight, that may take a little longer.
