Wild Australian weather causes widespread power blackouts
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Wild Australian weather causes widespread power blackouts*
December 31, 2007 11:25am
Article from: AAP
WILD weather has caused widespread blackouts across southeast Queensland
and forced the cancellation of some New Year's Eve fireworks, as the
region is pounded by the effects of an intense low pressure system.
A total of 46,000 homes were blacked out over the weekend after winds of
up to 100km/h blew debris, including trees and outdoor furniture, on to
powerlines.
About 3500 homes were still without power in Brisbane's Albany Creek,
Bridgeman Downs, and Ashgrove areas.
Some 320 homes were still without power in the Gold Coast hinterland,
250 in Bulimba and 100 in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.
"This morning we had around about 12,000 out in total, but 9500 of those
were in the Sunshine Coast in the Maroochydore and Sippy Downs areas," a
spokesman for electricity supplier Energex said.
"We've found an issue with one of our substations.
"We're not sure whether it's weather-related but we're investigating
what has caused the fault."
But the spokesman said around 90 per cent of the outages were caused by
debris such as trees being blown on to powerlines.
"We're talking some trees the size of a man's torso," he said.
"We've also had a kite and lawn furniture (cut power)."
The State Emergency Service received calls for help from residents with
damaged and leaking roofs on the Sunshine Coast, Bundaberg and
Maryborough overnight.
Gale-force winds and seas of up to 6m continued to hammer the state's
central and southern coasts as the low pressure system, about 360km off
Sandy Cape on Fraser Island, continued to move north-west.
A severe weather warning still exists for areas south of Rockhampton,
including Fraser Island and the Sunshine and Gold Coasts.
Dangerous surf is expected to keep beaches on the coasts closed today,
while strong winds and high tides have forced the cancellation the New
Year's Eve fireworks on the Gold Coast.
However Brisbane's fireworks are still expected to go ahead.
"Obviously there is a point with the wind speed and direction where we
would have to cancel it," chief pyrotechnician Stuart Bensley said.
"But ... we can change the height of the display by disabling the
effects that go the highest and also some of the effects that have a
longer burning time, which could potentially travel outside the
exclusion zone.
"We can turn all those off at the push of the button and we can proceed
with a lower level display."
Brisbane's South Bank Corporation chief executive Malcolm Snow said the
celebrations at the parklands would go ahead tonight despite the bad
weather, but said numbers may be down.
"We have had up to 100,000 people," he said.
"If the weather conditions dissuade some people from coming, as I'm sure
it may, then obviously that will bring the numbers back."
Despite the wild conditions, the storm has failed to bring any
significant rain to the southeast's three dams, which received falls of
between 3mm to 35mm.
SEQWater said Somerset Dam received the best rainfall with "slight"
inflows delivering an extra two days' supply.
"The current showers are delivering rain to the higher part of the
Stanley River catchment, which should ensure further inflows into
Somerset over the next few days," a spokesman said.