Updated 9pm, Saturday: Power has been restored to thousands on the north-west coast after an extensive outage TasNetworks has confirmed was caused by a possum.
“Upon arrival to the site, crews found that the reports that came into our fault centre regarding a vehicle hitting a pole were incorrect,” a spokesperson said.
“And it was infact a deceased possum that had come into contact with our assets.”
“Thank you for your patience and support while we tended to this outage.”
Earlier: More than 10,000 homes on the north-west coast are without power tonight after a vehicle reportedly struck a power pole.
The widespread outage began at around 7:30pm on Saturday and is affecting Ulverstone, Penguin, Gawler and several surrounding areas.
TasNetworks said approximately 9,000 customers lost electricity following reports of a car colliding with a pole on Gawler Road.
“Crews are attending and will endeavour to restore power as quickly as possible,” a spokesperson said.
The power distributor has warned people to stay at least 10 metres away from any fallen powerlines or damaged infrastructure.
“Restoration time to be advised,” the spokesperson added, directing residents to check for updates after 9pm.
