Following severe winds, flash flooding and golf-sized hail on Tuesday night, Oakleigh’s famous Hellenic precinct in Eaton Mall saw businesses closed due to power outages that have affected the area. Several homes have also remained in darkness overnight.
Meanwhile the reserve that is the homeground of the NPL and the Oakleigh Cannons Football Club has suffered damages from fallen trees and power pole line issues.
At its peak, 529,000 properties were without power due to the damage from storms, strong winds and lightning.
The Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action reports that the number had dwindled to 260,000 late on Tuesday but warned progress could be slow with repairs often taking days or even weeks.
“Crews are actively working to restore power to these impacted areas,” the department said.
“However, given the extent of the widespread damage, it may take days if not weeks to restore electricity to all of those impacted.”
Hundreds of power poles and lines were down across the state, with six transmission towers near Anakie collapsing.
Load shedding was enacted but cancelled shortly after, with power restored to all 90,000 affected customers
In Monash, where heavy storms caused power outages and damage, property owners are advised to visit their electricity provider’s website for reconnection estimates.
The Monash Recycling and Waste Centre has reopened, but some council services remain affected.
Three primary school campuses near an out-of-control fire at Newtown, west of Ballarat, have been closed, with the fire listed at an advice level, posing no current threat.
The Victorian State Emergency Service has received 3,040 calls for assistance since midday yesterday, urging callers to be patient due to a significant number of power outages statewide.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neill, who represents the Melbourne electorate of Hotham, said it was surprising so many homes lost power.
“There’s some really important questions to ask and answer here about how it’s possible that a country like Australia can lose power for 500,000 people because of a storm,” she told Seven’s Sunrise program on Wednesday.
“But I do think those questions are for later.”
Both Telstra and Optus have reported that hundreds of mobile sites are without power while they are monitoring the network and working with mains power authorities to deploy generators to impacted sites.
Hundreds of power poles and lines were downed and six transmission towers near Anakie collapsed on Tuesday, sending all four units at the Loy Yang A coal-fired power station offline.
Load shedding pushed spot power prices to $16,600 per MW-hour in Victoria and Tasmania, hundreds of times higher than typical levels.
Traffic lights were also impacted by the outage.
“This has been one of the largest outage events in the state’s history,” Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Meanwhile, Tuesday was a scorcher for multiple states, but Victoria suffered the worst with temperatures surpassing 40C in some parts and thunderstorms swept the state starting fires.
A catastrophic fire danger rating was declared for some parts of Victoria on Tuesday, the first since the deadly Black Summer of 2019-20.
As temperatures slightly drop amidst short bouts of rainfall several bushfires still burn in Victoria.
BUSHFIRES CONTINUE IN WESTERN VICTORIA
* Some of the worst bushfire conditions since Black Summer in 2019-20 sparked fires on Tuesday
* Two emergency warnings were issued for separate fires in the Grampians National Park and nearby communities in western Victoria, but were downgraded to watch and act warnings by Wednesday morning
* The fires in the Grampians are not yet contained but emergency services do not expect them to spread on Wednesday
* Flame heights of up to 30m were witnessed by emergency services
* It is unclear how many homes have been lost to the bushfires, but emergency services will be assessing losses
* There have been no reports of people missing due to the fires
* The warning for areas near the fire in the north of the park has been downgraded to a watch and act
* The Victorian Education Department has been advised of eight school closures in western parts of the state, along with 34 early learning centres
*With AAP, ABC
