THOUSANDS of residents shivered in the cold during a four-hour blackout as temperatures plummeted on Friday afternoon,
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A further 12 rural residences outside Orange struggled to stay warm through the night as they remained without power into Saturday.
The winter blast hit home at 3,000 Orange properties on Friday, with the first of four outages occurring at 1.41pm and affecting 517 households and businesses in the city’s south.
However it was the second outage which followed 20 minutes later which had the biggest impact, taking out power to 2,151 homes and businesses in the same area.
Orange City Bowling Club and Orange Aquatic Centre were forced to shut down due to the outage, which lasted four hours.
Essential Energy regional manager Mark Summers attributed the power failures to the wild weather conditions, which led to a tree falling on and bringing down power lines.
“For the safety of the public and their property, the power network automatically switched off several power lines in Orange throughout the afternoon as faults were sensed," said Mr Summers.
“Our local crews worked in some difficult conditions to restore power and I thank them for their efforts.”
While Essential Energy crews scrambled to restore power a third outage at 4.15pm affected another 77 residences followed by a fourth loss of power to another 332 homes and businesses at 4.33pm.
The majority of houses and businesses affected had their power restored in two stages at 5.30pm, and 6pm.
However the 12 property owners Essential Energy couldn't access due to the snow and poor weather conditions had to wait until early Saturday morning when Essential Energy crews returned.
“We do apologise for any inconvenience and thank customers for their patience,” said Mr Summers.
Wild weather across NSW on Friday afternoon and evening caused outages to 12,000 households and businesses across the Essential Energy network.
The chilly temperatures on the weekend – the mercury plunged to -3 degrees on Saturday – prompted police to remind motorists to be aware of black ice on the roads.
“We haven't been inundated with calls from the public wanting to know road conditions, and instead people have gone on to the appropriate websites to check road closures,” said a police spokesperson.