More than 100 customers are still without power as a result of the Sir Ivan fire, with the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) warning recent cuts to Essential Energy staffing numbers had drastically reduced their ability to replace damaged infrastructure.
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Around 1,550 households and businesses were impacted by an unplanned power outage as a result of Sunday’s bushfire in Cassilis, Coolah, Leadville and surrounding areas.
At least 281 power poles, as well as 31 homes and a church, were destroyed in the blaze.
Our members are doing their best to get power restored as quickly as possible, but with the scale of the damage — and the number of poles that need replacing — it may take up to a week.
- Dave McKinley
ETU deputy secretary Dave McKinley said residents returning to fire ravaged areas around Uarbry, Leadville and Cassilis faced being without electricity for days to come as a reduced number of maintenance crews worked around the clock to restore services.
“This is a massive repair job by any standard, but exhausted power workers have told the union their efforts to restore electricity services to these regional communities has been made substantially harder due to massive staffing cuts implemented by the NSW Government,” Mr McKinley said.
Mr McKinley said major Essential Energy depots in nearby regional centres such as Dubbo, Mudgee, Parkes and Forbes had lost up to a third of their workforce in recent years, while the company had just commenced a further 600 job cuts across the rural and regional power network.
“Our members are doing their best to get power restored as quickly as possible, but with the scale of the damage — and the number of poles that need replacing — it may take up to a week,” he said.
Essential Energy Regional Manager Northern Mark Summers said crews had “progressively” restored power to all but 125 customers by 8.38pm Tuesday, “despite challenging conditions”.
“The network damage from the bushfires has been significant … Despite this, the restoration work already completed by Essential Energy crews has returned power to most customers,” Mr Summers said.
“Due to the severity of the bushfire, Essential Energy has worked closely with the NSW Rural Fire Service to gain safe access to the electricity network to complete the necessary repairs and restore power for affected customers.
“Despite extensive damage to the main powerline supplying Coolah township, 315 households and businesses – including the hospital and parts of the main street – had power restored by 9.30am Monday with the remainder restored by 12.14am Tuesday.”
More than 150 Essential Energy employees from Barraba, Bathurst, Blayney, Bombala, Bourke, Canowindra, Cobar, Cooma, Coonabarabran, Coonamble, Dubbo, Dunedoo, Gilgandra, Glen Innes, Goondiwindi, Griffith, Gunnedah, Guyra, Inverell, Jindabyne, Leeton, Lockhart, Molong, Moree, Mudgee, Narrabri, Narromine, Nyngan, Orange, Quirindi, Tamworth, Tenterfield, Wagga Wagga, Walgett and Warren were working in the wider Coolah area to restore power to customers as quickly as safety allowed, Mr Summers said.
By contrast, 143 additional employees from across NSW assisted local crews with power restoration efforts after bushfires (Coonabarabran) and storms (Gunnedah and Narrabri) caused unplanned power outages for around 25,000 households and businesses on Sunday, 13 January 2013, he said.
“Contractors, including earthmoving and transport companies, along with many office-based Essential Energy employees, are also assisting field crews with the restorations efforts in areas such as planning, stores, logistics, communications and customer contact,” he said.
