It's raining in Sydney

Decided to walk the kids to school rather than have them sit on a bus in traffic for ages.

Got to see the tree up close - came down on a car (there may be more under there!), and traffic was extremely heavy at around 8:30am.

No resources on site to deal with it at that time - but it's clearly down over powerlines, so I'm assuming that they are waiting for Ausgrid to come and make it safe before they can start work.

 

But at least the catchments all got a good soaking.

 

People are reporting that they are being advised by Ausgrid crews in some areas not to expect power restored in less than a week and in some cases up to a month.



They are bringing in additional crews from across the state to help restore power.



There are bound to be a lot of people asking whether a privatised power network supply is in our best interest. Surely this should be a national asset which can receive a national response in times of crisis?

We're fortunate that we are unaffected at our house - but about 20 houses starting from a couple of doors up the road have been without power since 11am yesterday, so it could easily have been us too!

Lengthy outages are not unprecedented either - it was only a couple of months back that some parts of Castlecrag / Middle Cove / Castle Cove were without power for nearly a week when a mini-tornado took out some local infrastructure which required a complete rebuild.

There are plenty of vulnerable people out in the community who will suffer disproportionately from lengthy power outages too.

 

I think it would depend on the extent of the damage - they would be prioritising getting power restored to the largest number of people as quickly as possible - so it's likely the outliers where only a few customers are affected and it's a major job to repair where they are likely to have to wait.

The comments I saw were about Mt Colah, Mt Ku-Ring-Gai and Bewowra.

 

If you were largely self sufficient with solar panels and batteries, then you could probably do reasonably well.

Even if you weren't able to last a full 24 hours without grid connection, some power is better than no power!

 

Ausgrid have confirmed it will take a few days to restore power in some areas and are recommending that people consider alternative accommodation options.

 

This is the next phase of the government's sports rorts - a pool for every back yard.

 

At least the water situation in Sydney is looking a lot better now!





Still lots of areas without power though.