ESSENTIAL Energy crews were kept busy yesterday restoring power to hundreds of local businesses and households that suffered blackouts when wild weather swept through Dubbo and surrounds.
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Just before 10am nearly 1500 people between Dubbo and Geurie lost power, Essential Energy spokesperson David Crough said.
Residents reported blackouts in areas including Firgrove and Mugga Hill.
Mr Crough said crews worked to restore power from that initial incident and had done so within two hours.
"Given the amount of lightning and wind, the network in the Dubbo area held up reasonably well," he said.
"There was, however, a range of damage including a blown transformer just outside Dubbo and some blown network fuses.
"The network switched itself off, for the safety for the public and their property, after sensing a problem.
"At this stage we believe there was a direct lightning strike on a power line."
Neither Dubbo airport nor flights in and out of the city were affected by the outages and stormy weather, a Dubbo City Council spokesperson told the Daily Liberal. A NSW Fire and Rescue spokesperson said Dubbo firefighters were called to multiple instances yesterday where the storm had triggered automatic fire alarms where there were no fires.