Current Events > So I've had no power or internet for the past 24 hours.

(+) Yeah! (+)

We had a fairly ferocious storm come through yesterday afternoon around 3:30pm. No damage to property (our property that is) but we had 5 trees come down in our backyard, causing quite the mess.

Our town has power, but our street doesn't due to a tree falling over the powerline that comes into our street, severing it. The local SES (State Emergency Service) won't remove the fallen tree as there are powerlines underneath it. The power company who deals with the infrastructure says it could be a week or two before they get to it.

To be fair, the power company says they have 340 crews working around fixing things, yet they have over 400 incidents where power is out. The towns further down the line (the nearest has a population of 3500+) are without power. Within our surrounding area (a 100km radius) there are 5 towns without power. They've been told it could be a week before it's back on.

To make things worse, the mobile phone system is down too, has been since about 10pm last night. It has come back sporadically throughout the day, usually for about a minute or two before going down again. It can be off for a few hours in between too.

I was lucky enough to get a 3.3kva generator delivered today. It was the last one the wholesaler I deal with had (apparently they sold out within 15 minutes this morning). I was after the 6.8kva one but beggars can't be choosers. At least we can keep our refrigerator and freezers going. Our internet, though, is taking a back seat in the power hierarchy.

So, typing this I lost mobile phone connection for about half an hour. It's back now, but who knows for how long.

F for Victorians.

Where are you TC?

Just received a message from the power company saying they've assessed our situation and, at this stage, they won't be doing anything about it until Saturday afternoon at the earliest.

That sucks TC. The worst I had to deal with was a week and we couldn't leave our house due to a down power line

Shit sucks. When we have mass outages, our little group is ten houses, so we're always some of the last to get our power back.

SiO4 posted...

Where are you TC?

Australia. More specifically regional Victoria.

shnangyboos posted...

Shit sucks. When we have mass outages, our little group is ten houses, so we're always some of the last to get our power back.

Apparently, about half of the state, or there abouts, is without power, mainly due to fallen trees knocking out power lines. I heard a few transmission lines and towers got taken out too.

blistr posted...

Australia. More specifically regional Victoria.

Ohhh, late Summer weather then.
That sucks, I hope it clears up soon.

SiO4 posted...

Ohhh, late Summer weather then.
That sucks, I hope it clears up soon.

February is usually one of our hotter months too, at least during the day. Nights aren't as bad though.

We fired up the generator yesterday, as soon as it was delivered, so at least we can keep the refrigerator and freezers going. I feel for my neighbours either side of me. One of them just spent $150 on cold and frozen foods the day this happened. The other lost everything in their refrigerator and are about to lose what's in their freezer.

Ya, that is no good.

If that happened here it would be the exact opposite.
Pipes bursting and people having hypothermia.

Better put them shrimps on the barby before they turn