TREE DOWN: Storm damage was caused to this home yesterday afternoon as a tree came down in high winds and heavy rain. Photo: PHILL MURRAY 012213pstorm
Nearly 2500 buildings in Bathurst lost power yesterday as a severe storm swept through the city.
All available Essential Energy crews were dispatched at around 1.45pm as powerful wind, rain and hail lashed the CBD and areas west of Bathurst.
A spokesperson for Essential Energy said two major high voltage (feeder) lines into the city sustained damage.
Both the Piper Street feeder and the Simplot feeder went down, blacking out the northwest area of the city.
Damage included trees falling on powerlines, problems with infrastructure and fallen powerlines.
At the peak of the storm, 2300 properties, including homes and businesses, were affected.
Essential Energy south eastern regional general manager Phillip Green said crews were hard at work yesterday afternoon to restore power.
“The violent storm front that passed through the Bathurst area yesterday afternoon kept our crews busy with a number of issues ranging from trees over powerlines, damaged infrastructure and fallen powerlines,” Mr Green said.
“We urge all customers to always stay well clear of any damaged parts of our electricity network and call our supply interruptions team on 13 20 80,” Mr Green said.
Power was restored to all properties by 3.45pm.
One anxious business owner in the CBD was Craig Sharah from Country Fruit in George Street.
With around two hours worth of cold left in his freezers, it was an anxious wait for power to be restored.
“I’m very concerned,” Mr Sharah said. “Our cool rooms and freezers are down as well as our cash registers.”
The Bathurst Centrelink office also closed its doors for the duration of the outage as all their computers were out of action due to the outage.
Bathurst SES received nine calls as a result of yesterday’s violent storm, relating to a combination of fallen trees, leaking roofs, blown down sheds and threats of flooding.