Ausnet, which covers the outer northern and eastern suburbs, and eastern Victoria, says its online outage tracker is “currently experiencing overwhelming demand”.
You can view the full list of outages here, but some notable impacts include:
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22,173 without power in Beaconsfield
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17,753 in Ferntree Gully
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13,594 without power in Bairnsdale
According to Powercor’s outage map, it has 11,726 unplanned power outages. 19,659 United Energy customers are without power, and 102 Jemena customers are affected.
Tim Rourke, a director of Energy Networks Australia and chief executive of electricity suppliers CitiPower and Powercor, told 3AW Melbourne just earlier:
By the end of today, we’ll fundamentally have all our customers back on in UE, CitiPower and Powercor. There’ll only be a … couple of hundred off, and they’ll be single-premise wires downs.
We’ve got a very good electrical system and network. I do thank people for understanding [and] I understand the frustration. But this is fundamentally a storm event.
Roughly 260,000 homes across Victoria are still without power, following last nights disastrous storm.
At its height around half a million were impacted.
Gary Cook, the state response controller, told ABC RN earlier this morning there will be “some delays” in restoring power as “there’s a lot of damage out there that will need to be tidied up”.
He said:
[Affected customers are not] necessarily located in any specific area. That windstorm that went through yesterday was basically from the coast to the Murray River and traversed the state everywhere … particularly the eastern suburbs of Melbourne were hard hit.
We’ll let the power companies make the assessments of how quickly they can get customers reinstated. I couldn’t put a timeline on any particular area or any particular customer…
Welcome to our separate live blog, covering the fires and storm aftermath across Victoria. I’m Emily Wind, and I’ll bring you our live coverage today.
Here’s what we know so far:
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Firefighters are continuing to battle the Bellfield, Mount Stapylton and Newtown fires in Victoria’s west and central regions
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CFA chief officer Jason Heffernan said both homes and outbuildings had been lost in the fires overnight
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Damage assessment crews will work to confirm the damage this morning
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Roughly 260,000 homes are still without power, with the eastern suburbs of Melbourne particularly hard hit
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Victoria’s state response controller Gary Cook could not put a timeline on when damage to power supplies could be repaired. At its peak, around half a million homes were without power
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At this stage, no persons have been reported missing
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The State Emergency Service received more than 2,750 calls for assistance between midday Tuesday and 6am today
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The Department of Transport warned that “hundreds” of traffic lights were without power and flashing yellow across Melbourne and regional areas, urging motorists to drive safely and stay alert for hazards
Have you been impacted by the bushfires or storms? Send us your photos and experiences for the blog via X, @emilywindwrites or you can send me an email: emily.wind@theguardian.com.
We’ll continue to bring you the latest updates throughout the day.
